“It is true! it is true! Oh, do not talk to me, but promise me, promise me, or I shall die! Have pity on me! have pity on yourself!”
In the agony of her feelings her voice became almost a shriek, and her wild, affrighted face had a deadly pallor; she looked like one in a death-agony. Agostino was alarmed, and hastened to soothe her, by promising whatever she required.
“Agnes, dear Agnes, I submit; only be calm. I promise anything,—anything in the wide world you can ask.”
“Will you let me go?”
“Yes.”
“And will you let my poor grandmamma go with me?”
“Yes.”
“And you will not talk with me any more?”
“Not if you do not wish it. And now,” he said, “that I have submitted to all these hard conditions, will you suffer me to raise you?”
He took her hands and lifted her up; they were cold, and she was trembling and shivering. He held them a moment; she tried to withdraw them, and he let them go.