t
was more comprehensible to him than it might have been to a man of
Beatrice's own class. Her head had been turned for a moment, as Ruggiero
would have said, and afterwards she had understood the truth. He had
heard many stories of the kind from his companions. Women were
changeable, of course. Every one knew that. And why? Because men were
bad and tempted them, and moreover because they were so made. He did not
love Beatrice for any moral quality she might or might not possess, he
was far too human, and natural and too little educated to seek reasons
for the passion that devoured him. Since he felt it, it was real. What
other proof of its reality could he need? It never entered his head to
ask for any, and his heart would not have beaten more strongly or less
rudely for twenty reasons, on either side.

And now he was strangely happy and strangely calm as he sat there by
himself. Beatrice could never love him. The mere idea was absurd beyond
words. How could she love a common man like himself? But she did not
love San Miniato either, and unless something were done quickly she
would be forced into marrying him. Of course a mother could make her
daughter marry whom she pleased. Ruggiero knew that. The only way of
saving Beatrice was to make an end of San Miniato, and that was a very
simple matter indeed. San Miniato would be but a poor thing in those
great hands of Ruggiero's, though he was a well grown man and still
young and certainly stronger than the average of fine gentlemen.

Of course it was a great sin to kill San Miniato. Murder was always a
sin, and people who did murder and died unabsolved always went straight
into eternal fire. But the eternal fire did not impress Ruggiero much.
In the first place Beatrice would be free and quite happy on earth, and
in the natural course of things would go to Heaven afterwards, since she
could have no part whatever in San Miniato's destruction. Secondly, San
Miniato would be with Ruggiero in the flames, and throughout all
eternity Ruggiero would have the undying satisfaction of having brought
him there without any one's help. That would pay for any amount of
burning, in the simple and uncompromising view of the future state which
he took.

So he sat on the block of stone and listened to the sea and thought it
all over quietly, feeling very happy and proud, since he was to be the
means of saving the woman he loved. What more could any man ask, if he
could not be loved, than