of the miller's widow shut up in prison
pleased him; he had hated her as he had seen her in what he called her
finery, going by him in the sunshine, with all her bravery of pearl
necklace, of silver hair-pins, of gold watch and chain. Many and many a
time he had thirsted to snatch at them and pull them off her. What right
had she to them, she, a daughter of naked hungry folks, who dug and
carted sea- and river-sand for a living? She was no better than himself!
Now and then, Generosa had called him, in her careless, imperious
fashion, to draw water or carry wood for her, and when she had done so
she never had taken the trouble to bid him good-day or to say a
good-natured word. His pride was hurt, and he had had much ado to
restrain himself from calling her a daughter of beggars, a worm of the
sand. Like her own people, he was pleased that she should now find her
fine clothes and her jewelled trinkets of no avail to her, and that she
should weep the light out of her big eyes, and the rose-bloom off her
peach-like cheeks, in the squalor and nausea of a town prison.

Gesualdo, with all the force which a profound conviction that he speaks
the truth lends to any speaker, wrestled for the soul of this dogged
brute, and warned him of the punishment everlasting which would await
him if he persisted in his refusal to surrender himself to justice. But
he might as well have spoken to the great millstones at rest in the
river-water. Why then had this wretch cast the burden of his vile secret
on innocent shoulders? It was the most poignant anguish to him that he
could awaken no sense of guilt in the conscience of the criminal. The
man had come to him partly from a vague superstitious impulse, remnant
of a credulity instilled into him in childhood, and partly from the want
to _sfogare_ himself, as he called it,--to tell his story to some
one,--which is characteristic of all weak minds in times of trouble and
peril. It had relieved him to drag the priest into sharing his own
guilty consciousness; he was half proud and half afraid of the manner in
which he had slain his master, and bitterly incensed that he had done
the deed for nothing; but beyond this he had no other emotion, except
that he was glad that Generosa should suffer through and for it.

"You will burn forever if you persist in such hideous wickedness," said
Gesualdo again and again to him.

"I will take my chance of that," said the man. "Hell is far off, and the
galleys a