To paint the grief of the wretched Lucia when Uncle Bartolo informed her of the no-result of his mission, would be impossible.
“Holy God!” she exclaimed between her sobs, “only with thee shall I find mercy! Ah! how I loved this brother in the days of my happy childhood, when I was innocent, and he was all my consolation! Then he could not do enough to please me, and used to swear never to abandon me!”
“Come, come, dry your tears, my daughter,” said Uncle Bartolo. “‘The frightened partridge is the first to get skewered.’ What do you want of an unnatural, without bowels of compassion? You have me, and the roof of my house is not so small that it cannot shelter you. What I have you shall share, and you can help my poor Josefa. She has become a potsherd, and don’t get much rest, for ‘woman’s work is done and to be done again.’”
When the other inmates of the house slept, Lucia kept lonely vigil, and wept the things that had formerly made her happiness—her poverty, her innocence, and her brother’s affection. Wandering in the vast field of her recollections, she found both affliction and consolation in recalling
all the particulars of her simple life; every proof of tenderness that she had received from her brother; every hope, withered or dead. With the deepening silence and shadows of the night, her anguish increased. “What shall I do? What shall I do?” she cried, wringing her hands. “I cannot be a burden to this good old man! I cannot stay in this neighborhood, for my own brother’s rejection of me will encourage others to outrage me! What shall I do? I must beg if I cannot find work! Where shall I go? Wherever God may lead me!”
Without waiting for daylight, and silently, in order that her departure might not be perceived by her protector, Lucia opened the door, and stepped into the street.
But she could not leave, for ever, a place so dear to her, without lingering for a moment before the adjacent house. It was the one in which her mother died; its roof had sheltered her tranquil infancy: in it she was leaving the brother that she still loved, in spite of her guilt and his inhumanity.
Lucas was not asleep. Exasperation, a disquieted conscience, and heavy heart had driven repose from him.
All at once, he was startled by the tones of a sweet and tremulous voice near to the street door, singing the romance that he had taught his sister
when she was a child. He sprang from the bed, moved by an irresistible impulse, but instantly covered his ears with his hands as if to shut out the sound.