'Let us go away,' said Annarella, who could bear no more.
'Thank you for your kindness, ma'am,' said Carmela.
'Thank you so much,' added Annarella.
'Thank God! thank Him!' the witch cried out piously.
She cast herself down again, kneeling, fervently praying, while the big black cat gently mewed, rubbing its pink nose on the table. The two women went out, thoughtful and preoccupied.
'That witchcraft is not good,' said Annarella, in a melancholy way to her sister.
'Then, what should be done—what can be done?' the other asked, wringing her hands, her eyes filled with tears.
'Nothing can be done,' said Annarella, in a solemn voice.
They went down slowly, tired, worn out by that long scene of witchcraft, which was above their intellectual capacity, and depressed by the tension on their nerves. A man went up the steps of Centograde Lane quickly, turning towards the witch's house. It was Don Pasqualino De Feo. The sisters did not see him; they went on, feeling the weight of their unhappy life heavier, fearing to have gone beyond the limits allowable to pious folk, and that they had drawn God's mysterious vengeance on the heads of those they loved.