"I recognize as an attaché of the Police Count Monte-Leone, who acts by my authority."
"This is awful," said she.
"Do you yet doubt?" said Taddeo, quivering with grief.
"What will you do with that paper?" said La Felina, also trembling.
"What people do with a decree which holds a man to public infamy—fasten it to the scaffold, that all may know who is the wretch society expels from its bosom. I will nail it to his brow."
"No, no! you will not do so; you will not be hard-hearted and cruel enough to act thus."
"I will do my duty," said Taddeo, sternly.
"And I," said Signora de la Palma, taking possession of the paper, "will not suffer you to do so." Then, quicker than thought, she crushed the paper in her hands, and threw it in the fire.
"What have you done?" said Taddeo. "You have destroyed the irrefragable proof of his guilt."
"You read it, that is enough for you—it is too much for him." Then rushing from the room where she was alone, she said aloud—"It is enough, too, for me, for now she will never marry him."