'Yes, yes,' she replied, quieted at the idea of being protected.
'Adieu, madame!'
'À Dieu!' she said, pointedly separating the two words.
Margherita went with him, thanking him softly for having saved her mistress; but he had again become an energetic, busy man, inimical to words.
'Where is the Marquis?' he insisted on knowing.
'In the drawing-room, Professor.'
And she took him there. It was just so. Don Carlo Cavalcanti, Marquis di Formosa, and Pasqualino De Feo were walking up and down silently. It was almost dark: still, the doctor examined the medium with a scrutinizing, suspicious eye.
'How is Bianca Maria?' asked Formosa, coming out of a dream.
'Better now,' the doctor replied in a short, cold tone; 'but she has been struck prematurely, owing to a growing want of balance, moral and physical. If you don't give her sun, movement, air, quiet, and cheerfulness, she may die—from one day to another.'
'Don't say so, doctor!' the father cried out, angry and grieved.