"What you feel at liberty to tell me, let me hear," he said to the old servant.
Gianna told him in her picturesque, warmly-coloured phrase what had passed between Sior' Clelia and the little girl in the night; and what she had herself said to Adone at dawn; and how Nerina was lying asleep in the hay-loft, being afraid, doubtless, to come up to the house.
Don Silverio listened with pain and indignation.
"What is he about to risk a female child on such errands? And why is his mother in such vehement haste to say cruel words and think unjust and untrue things?"
"They are unjust and untrue, sir, are they not?" said Gianna. "But it looked ill, you see; a little creature going out in the middle of the night, and to be sure she was but a vagrant when she came to us."
"And now — how does the matter stand? Has Adone convinced his mother of the girl's innocence?"
"Whew! That I cannot say, sir. They are upstairs; and their voices were loud an hour ago. Now they are still. I had a mind to go up, but I am afraid."
"Go up; and send Adone to me."
"He is perhaps asleep, sir; he came across the water at dawn."
"If so, wake him. I must speak to him without delay."