VI.—DRAMA.
While the trial of Count Monte-Leone thus excited the whole city of Naples, while Rovero under the influence of a thousand emotions heard all its details, let us look back to what is going on in the villa at Sorrento. The reader will excuse us, for thus transporting him from place to place, for attempting to interest him in behalf of various personages, joining or deserting them, as the plan of our story requires.
The novelist is like the weaver, who keeps in his hand the various threads of his woof, brings them together and apart, until the time when his finished work rewards his toil. Like the weaver, we shall unite, day by day, our threads, and gather them finally into one knot.
We left the Marquis of Maulear about to return to the villa, in search of assistance for Scorpione, who had fainted. When people came to the hut, the mute had regained his senses. He knelt before Aminta, who spoke to him with vivacity. What she said we cannot tell, for when she was interrupted she ceased. The eyes of Tonio were red, and he seemed to have been shedding tears. The invalid was taken to the villa, and so the matter seemed to end.
Maulear was not much engrossed by the suspicions he had previously conceived of Tonio, because love for Aminta, supposing that such he bore, did not seem formidable. His apprehensions found something far more serious. Was the heart of her he loved unoccupied? The strange episode of the lost veil had not yet been explained. Yielding to the influence of passion, he had, when he saw the young girl, forgotten every thing, and the sudden appearance of Scorpione, by rendering it impossible for Aminta to answer him, complicated the matter yet more.
Just as Signora Rovero went towards the hut, where the Marquis had left the mute in a state of insensibility, Aminta went to the villa, preceding those who bore Tonio.
"I will not again trust you with our patient," said Aminta's mother. "He always returns worse than when he goes."
"Right mother," said Aminta, "henceforth I will not take charge of Tonio, for his new sufferings have, I am sure, taken away the little sense he previously had."
Tonio, who heard what Aminta said, looked down and returned to his room, glooming angrily at the Marquis as he passed.
"You are already one of us, Marquis, on account of the indiscreet request of my son. But neither my daughter nor myself will complain of the pleasure he has thus procured us. Now," continued she, "permit me to show you the most precious treasure in our house."