hey shall have his
confession; but it must be the truth."

"He killed his wife because he hated her; because, whether it were her
fault or not, she was a stumbling-block in his path. He had been
outraged by her aversion, exasperated by her patience, maddened by her
never putting herself in the wrong. While her parents were with her, she
resisted and clamoured, and then her presence could be endured; but they
were left alone together, and then everything was changed. Day by day,
and all day, he was confronted by her automatic obedience, by her dumb
despair. She rose up and lay down--she spoke or was silent at his
bidding; neither a loosened hair, nor a crumple in the dress, giving
token of resistance; he might have strangled her without her making a
sign. She eloped from him, yet he could not surprise her in the
commission of a sin: and he returned from his pursuit of her, ridiculous
when he should have been triumphant. He took his revenge at last. And
now that he might tell his story and find no one to controvert it--how
he came to claim his wife and child, and found no child, but the lover
by the wife's side; was attacked, defended himself, struck right and
left, and thus did the deed--she survives, by miracle, to confute him,
to condemn him, and worst of all, to forgive him."

"He has been ensnared by his opportunities from first to last. He failed
to save himself from retribution, only because he was drunk with the
sudden freedom from this hateful load. And Pompilia haunts him still.
Her stupid purity will freeze him even in death. It will rob him of his
hell--where the fiend in him would burn up in fiery rapture--where some
Lucrezia might meet him as his fitting bride--where the wolf-nature
frankly glutted would perhaps leave room for some return to human form.
For she cannot hate. It would grieve her to know him there; and--if
there be a hell--it will be barred to him in consideration for her."

"The Cardinal, the Abate, they too are petrifactions in their way! He
may rave another twelve hours, and it will be useless." Yet he makes one
more effort to move them. He reminds the Cardinal of the crimes he has
committed--of the help he will need when a new Pope is to be elected; of
the possible supporter who may then be in his grave. Then fiercely
turning on them both; "the Cardinal have a chance indeed, when there is
an Albano in the case! The Abate be alive a year hence, with that
burning hollow cheek and that hacki