That evening she felt that Providence had guided her well and happily. She perceived that Gaetano’s imprisonment had been the work of God to lead him back to faith. He would be set free by the miracles of the little image, and that would convert him so that he would become a believer as before. And she might be his. How good God was!
And while this great bliss stirred within her, her father sat opposite her quite cold and indifferent.
“It was very extraordinary,” was all he said.
“You will come to-morrow to the ceremony of the laying of the foundations?”
“I do not know; I have my investigations.”
Donna Micaela began to crumble her bread rather hastily. Her patience was exhausted. She had not asked him to share her sorrows, but her joys; he must share her joys!
All at once the shackles of submission and fear, which had bound her ever since the time of his imprisonment, broke.
“You who ride so much about Etna,” she said with a very quiet voice, “must have also come to Gela?”
The cavaliere looked up and seemed to search his memory. “Gela, Gela?”