The captive remained silent, wondering what was to come next. She had taken her hand from off his shoulder, or rather it had slipped from it as he drew back.
“You’ll be surprised at my coming here,” she continued, speaking in the tongue and tone of a lady. “From what you have seen you will think there can be no compassion in a heart like mine. You may well think so.”
“No, no,” asseverated the captive, now really feeling surprise; “no doubt, you have been unfortunate.”
“That’s true,” she hurriedly rejoined, as if not caring to dwell upon some recollection called up by his speech. “Signore, I am here, not to talk of the past—my past—but of your future.”
“Mine!”
“Yes, yours. Oh, it is fearful!”
“In what way fearful?” asked the young Englishman. “Surely, I shall soon be set free? Why need I care for a few days, or even weeks, of imprisonment?”
“Caro signore, you deceive yourself! It is not imprisonment, though you may find that hard enough; and harder still when he comes back again—brute that he is!”
Strange language for a wife to use towards her husband, thought Henry Harding.
“Yes, harder,” continued she, “if the letter you have written receive no response—I mean if it bring no ransom. Tell me, signore, what did you say in that letter? Tell me all.”