She said no word to the Minister of this meeting, and, as in four years it was the first secret that she had kept from him, a dozen times she was obliged to stop short in the middle of a sentence. She returned to Sacca with a store of gold. Ferrante shewed no sign of life. She came again a fortnight later: Ferrante, after following her for some time, bounding through the wood at a distance of a hundred yards, fell upon her with the swiftness of a hawk, and flung himself at her feet as on the former occasion.
"Where were you a fortnight ago?"
"In the mountains, beyond Novi, robbing the muleteers who were returning from Milan where they had been selling oil."
"Take this purse."
Ferrante opened the purse, took from it a sequin which he kissed and thrust into his bosom, then handed it back to her.
"You give me back this purse, and you are a robber!"
"Certainly; my rule is that I must never possess more than a hundred francs; now, at this moment, the mother of my children has eighty francs, and I have twenty-five; I am five francs to the bad, and if they were to hang me now I should feel remorse. I have taken this sequin because it comes from you and I love you."
The intonation of this very simple speech was perfect. "He does really love," the Duchessa said to herself.
That day he appeared quite distracted. He said that there were in Parma people who owed him six hundred francs, and that with that sum he could repair his hut in which now his poor children were catching cold.
"But I will make you a loan of those six hundred francs," said the Duchessa, genuinely moved.