, she would have learned once and for ever the
difference between real passion and its counterfeit. But Ruggiero knew
where he was and had no intention of betraying himself by voice or
movement. He suffered almost all that a man can suffer by the heart
alone, but he was strong and could bear torture.

The hardest of all was that he understood the real truth, partly by
instinct and partly through what he knew of his master. Those rough
southern sailors sometimes have a wonderful keenness in discovering the
meaning of their masters' doings. Ruggiero held the key to the
situation. He knew that San Miniato was poor and that the Marchesa was
very rich. He knew very well that San Miniato was not at all in love,
for he knew what love really meant, and he could see how the Count
always acted by calculation and never from impulse. Best of all he saw
that Beatrice was a mere child who was being deceived by the coolly
assumed passion of a veteran woman-killer. It was bitterly hard to bear.
And he had felt a foreboding of it all in the afternoon--and he wished
that he had risked all and brought down the brass tiller on San
Miniato's head and submitted to be sent to the galleys for life. He
could never have forgotten Beatrice; but San Miniato could never have
married her, and that satisfaction would have made chains light and hard
labour a pastime.

It was too late to think of such things now. Had he yielded to the first
murderous impulse, it would have been better. But he had never struck a
man from behind and he knew that he could not do it in cold blood. Yet
how much better it would have been! He would not be lying now on the
rock, holding his breath and clenching his fists, listening to his
Excellency the Count of San Miniato's love making. By this time the
Count of San Miniato would be cold, and he, Ruggiero, would be
handcuffed and locked up in the little barrack of the gendarmes at
Sorrento, and Beatrice with her mother would be recovering from their
fright as best they could in the rooms at the hotel, and Teresina would
be crying, and Bastianello would be sitting at the door of his brother's
prison waiting to see what happened and ready to do what he could. Truly
all this would have been much better! But the moment had passed and he
must lie on his rock in silence, bound hand and foot by the necessity of
hiding himself, and giving his heart to be torn to pieces by San
Miniato's aristocratic fine gentleman's hands, and burne