She looked up with a kind of vague, incredulous smile, and passed her hand across her forehead, as though to reflect more clearly.
"You have seen her, and you have not given it to her," she said. "What does it mean?"
"It means," said M. Narelli, "that your child is the victim of an act of fearful treachery, of a dreadful crime."
"My child! my child!" she shrieked aloud. "There is but one man who could hurt a child, a sweet child like that—its own father!"
She bowed her head for a time, and raised it again only to utter the most fearful ravings. Fit followed fit; her whole frame was convulsed, and I withdrew in horror and anguish.
The result may be shortly stated. She went mad, and was confined in an asylum,—one of those glorious charitable establishments of which modern Rome can boast. Flavio escaped to the Campo Morto, where he is now living,—an asylum for men guilty of the blackest crimes, where they gradually fall victims to the pestilential vapors which they inhale, and perish beneath the brightest sun while cultivating the soil so soon to become their graves.