pare ever said you were like somebody?'"

Gaspare said nothing.

"Did you hear, Gaspare?"

"Si, Signora."

"Gaspare, it seems to me"--Hermione was speaking now very slowly, like
one shaping a thought in her mind while she spoke--"it seems to me
strange that you and Ruffo's mother should have known each other so well
long before Ruffo was born, and that she should cry because she met you
at the Festa, and that--afterwards--she should ask Ruffo that."

"Strange?"

The fear that had been formless was increasing now in Hermione, and
surely it was beginning at last to take a form, but as yet only a form
that was vague and shadowy.

"Yes. I think it very strange. Did you"--an intense curiosity was alive
in her now--"did you know Ruffo's mother in Sicily?"

"Signora, it does not matter where I knew her."

"Why should she say that?"

"What?"

"Has Gaspare ever said you were like somebody?"

"I have never said Ruffo was like anybody!" Gaspare exclaimed, with
sudden and intense violence. "May the Madonna let me die--may I die"--he
held up his arms--"may I die to-morrow if I have ever said Ruffo was
like anybody!"

He got up from his chair. His face was red in patches, like the face of
a man stricken with fever.

"Gaspare, I know that, but what could this woman have meant?"

"Madonna! How should I know? Signora, how can I tell what a woman like
that means? Such women have no sense, they talk, they gossip--ah, ah,
ah, ah!"--he imitated the voice of a woman of the people--"they are
always on the door-step, their tongues are always going. Dio mio! Who is
to say what they mean, or what nonsense goes through their heads?"

Hermione got up and laid her hand heavily on his arm.

"I believe you know of whom Ruffo's mother spoke, Gaspare. Tell me
this--did Ruffo's mother ever know your Padrone?"

She looked straight into his eyes. It seemed to her as if, for the first
time, there came from them to her a look that had something in it of
dislike. This look struck her to a terrible melancholy, yet she met it
firmly, almost fiercely, with a glance that fought it, that strove to
beat it back. And with a steady voice she repeated the question he had
not answered.

"Did Ruffo's mother ever know your Padrone?"

Gaspare moved his lips, passing his tongue over them. His eyes fell. He
moved his arm, trying to shift it from his Padrona's hand. Her fingers
closed on it more tenaciously.

"Gaspare, I order you to tell me."