“Perhaps I deserved it, Madonna. But perhaps not so much as you bestowed, had you but understood my motives,” I said unguardedly.
“If I had understood your motives?” she mused. “Aye, there is much I do not understand. Even in this night’s transactions there are not wanting things that remain mysterious despite the explanations you have supplied me. Tell me, Lazzaro, what was it led you to suppose that I still lived?
“I did not suppose it,” I blundered like a fool, never seeing whither her question led.
“You did not?” she cried, in deep surprise; and now, when it was too late, I understood. “What was it, then, induced you to lift the coffin-lid?”
“You ask me more than I can tell you,” I answered, almost roughly. “Do you thank God, Madonna, that it was so, and never plague your mind to learn the ‘why’ of it.”
She looked at me with eyes that were singularly luminous.
“But I must know,” she insisted. “Have I not the right? Tell me now: Was it that you wished to see my face again before they gave me over to the grave?”
“Perhaps it was that, Madonna,” I answered in confusion, avoiding her glance. Then—“Shall we be going?” I suggested fiercely. But she never heeded that suggestion.
She spoke as if she had not heard, and the words she uttered seemed to turn me into stone.
“Did you love me then so much, dear Lazzaro?”