tle child: we were both born on the Bocca
d'Arno. She is of a warm nature, but not a deep one; and if you go away
she will forget. Tassilo is a rude man and a hard one; he gives her all
she has; he has many claims on her, for in his way he has been generous
and tender. You are a stranger; you can only ruin her life; you can with
ease find another _gattaria_ far away in another province: why will you
not go? If you really loved her you would go."

Falko laughed. "Dear Don Gesualdo, you are a holy man, but you know
nothing of love."

Gesualdo winced a little again. It was the second time this had been
said to him this evening.

"Is it love," he said, after a pause, "to risk her murder by her
husband? I tell you Tassilo is not a man to take his dishonor quietly."

"Who cares what Tassilo does?" said the young steward, petulantly. "If
he touches a hair of her head I will make him die a thousand deaths."

"All those are words," said Gesualdo. "You cannot mend one crime by
another, and you cannot protect a woman from her husband's just
vengeance. There is only one way by which to save her from the danger
you have dragged her into. It is for you to go away."

"I will go away when this house walks a mile," said Falko. "Not before.
Go away!" he echoed, in wrath. "What! run like a mongrel dog before
Tassilo's anger? What! leave her all alone to curse me as a faithless
coward? What! go away, when all my life and my soul, and all the light
of my eyes, is in Marca? Don Gesualdo, you are a good man, but you are
mad. You must pardon me if I speak roughly. Your words make me beside
myself."

"Do you believe in no duty, then?"

"I believe in the duty of every honest lover," said Falko, with
vehemence, "and that duty is to do everything that the loved one wishes.
She is bound to a cur; she is unhappy; she has not even any children to
comfort her; she is like a beautiful flower shut up in a cellar, and she
loves me--me!--and you bid me go away! Don Gesualdo, keep to your church
offices, and leave the loves of others alone. What should you know of
them? Forgive me if I am rude. You are a holy man, but you know nothing
at all of men and women."

"I do not know much," said Gesualdo, meekly.

He was depressed and intimidated. He was sensible of his own utter
ignorance of the passions of life. This man, nigh his own age, but so
full of vigor, of ardor, of indignation, of pride in his consciousness
that he was beloved, and of resolv