While tying her bonnet-strings, Luisella, as she heard these desperate sobs, shivered to keep back her tears. But she did not interfere. She let the desolate heart find a vent and take comfort in kissing the little one. She, full of wonder, went on saying under the tears and kisses, 'Father, father, it is nothing.'
'Let us go home,' said Luisella, coming into the shop again, biting her lips, trying to harden her heart.
Still moved, Cesare Fragalà took his little girl in his arms, as he did every evening when she went to sleep in the shop, and put on her woollen hood, tying it under the chin. Luisella went on tidying up the shop a little, taking the key out of the strong box, feeling if all the drawers of the counter were properly shut, with that instinct for working with their hands all healthy, good young women have. They put out the gas, and Luisella lit a taper. Then they went away through the back-shop and the small door that led into Bianchi Lane. It was still raining. The warm scirocco wind beat the tepid summer rain in their faces; but they were not far from home. Cesare put up his umbrella, his wife took his arm to shelter from the rain, the child was perched on his other arm and put her head on his shoulder. All three went along, bowed under the summer storm, not speaking, clinging one to the other as if only love could save them from life's tempest that threatened to overwhelm them. At night, under the rage of heaven, it seemed as if they were going on and on to a sorrowful destiny. But the two innocent ones pressed close to the unhappy, guilty man, seeming to pray for him. They would bring him into safety. They said nothing till they got home, where the servant was waiting for them at the open door. She held out her arms to take Agnesina and carry her to her room to undress her and put her to bed. But the little one, as if she had understood the importance of the time, asked her father and mother to kiss her again, saying, in her gentle, baby tongue, 'Bless me, mother; bless me, father.'
At last they were alone again in their bedroom, where the silver lamp burned before the Mother of Jesus, the holy grieving Mother. Cesare was depressed. But Luisella opened the glass door of the wardrobe at once, where she kept her most valuable things, and stood for a little searching in that half-light. Then she pulled two or three dark leather jewel-cases out.
'Here they are,' she said, offering the jewels to her husband.
'Oh, Luisella! Luisella!' he cried out, agonized.
'I give them to you willingly, for the sake of your honour. I would not dare to keep these stones when we are in danger of failing in honesty. Take them. But by all that has been sweet in our past, by all that may be frightful in our future, by the love you bore me, that I bear you, for our dear child's sake, whose head you wept over this evening, I implore you with my whole heart, as one prays to Christ at the altar, give me a promise.'
'Luisella, you want to kill me!' he cried out, putting his hands through his hair.
'Do you promise to leave all your trade affairs in my hands—debts and dues, buying and selling?'
'I do promise.'