"They are anxious about you at your house," Don Silverio said with some sternness. "Is it well to cause your mother this disquietude?"
"No, it is not well," replied Adone. "But how can I see her and not tell her, and how can I tell her this thing?"
"Women to bear trouble are braver than men," said the priest. "They have more patience in pain than we. I have said something to her; but we need not yet despair. We know nothing of any certainty. Sometimes such schemes are abandoned at the last moment because too costly or too unremunerative. Sometimes they drag on for half a lifetime; and at the end nothing comes of them."
"You have told my mother?"
"I told her what troubles you, and made you leave your work undone. The little girl was feeding the cattle."
Adone coloured. He was conscious of the implied rebuke.
"Sir," he said in a low tone, "if this accursed thing comes to pass what will become of us? What I said in my haste last night I say in cold reason to-day."
"Then you are wrong, and you will turn a calamity into a curse. Men often do so."
"It is more than a calamity."
"Perhaps. Would not some other grief be yet worse? If you were stricken with blindness?"