'I want you to tell me—but think of the state I am in, think of that first.... I want you to tell me all.'
Then the other, fallen into deeper affliction, shook all over and held her tongue.
'They have had a duel,' Carmela brought out with difficulty, keeping her eyes on her sister. 'There were eight of them; Raffaele was there, and Ferdinando the Ammartenato—they were fighting for a woman.'
'Holy Virgin!' Filomena said, going on weeping with her face in her hands.
'Who was the woman?' asked the wounded girl, putting her hand on her sister's head, and almost obliging her to raise it. Filomena only looked at her, her eyes filled with tears.
'It was you—it was you,' the wounded girl said in a cavernous voice.
The bad woman threw herself back, raised her arms heavenward, and cried:
'I am a murderer—I am the cause of your death!'
Carmela's face got clay colour; in a whisper, stammering, as if she could not use her tongue, she too said:
'Murderer! murderer!'