her foot furiously, her cheeks were flame-red--"How did you dare do such
deeds? You have killed the marchese--dead; you have given Count Amadeo
three dangerous wounds and a fever; you are in every mouth, and not you
only, you wicked boy, but myself and my husband--and--and----" She wrung
her hands, she shook with anger, but at last she was silent. I ventured
to say that she did me wrong, though any wrong she did me would be
benevolence compared to my trespasses against her. I said that I had not
killed the marchese, who, on the contrary, had done his best to murder
me twice; and that as for the count, who had slandered her vilely and
deserved a felon's death, I had spared his life upon his retractation of
his calumny. "I hope," I said in conclusion, "that he told you to whom
he actually owed his life."

"He did, sir," said she haughtily; "he told me that you had been very
absurd, and had made him feel a fool--which he did not at all relish.
Oh, oh, oh!" she broke out with a little burst of laughter, "how could
you be so mad as to spare him for his pocket-handkerchief!"

"For a reason, madam," I said, "which does not amuse me at all."

"Nor should it," she agreed. "That was a serious thing that you did,
Checho. It was more serious than you seem to suppose. The wounds in his
person are nothing compared to what you did beside. He is a proud man,
and you have wounded his vanity. I doubt if he will ever be healed of
that stroke. Do you know what he said to me just now?"

She was perfectly friendly now, by my side, almost touching me with her
quick beautiful hands. With what seemed to me a levity no longer
becoming the woman she was grown to be, she talked of serious things
with sparkling eyes, and would give me confidences which she had