moment!" said he, bringing his
fist down swiftly and repeatedly on the little table. "You people are
deluding yourselves! You hope great things from that will; but it is not
a will at all, it is simply a bit of waste paper, the ravings of a
madman!"

Franco, who had already reached the door, stopped short, stunned by the
blow. "What will?" said he.

"Come now!" Pasotti retorted, half coldly, half mockingly. "We
understand each other perfectly!"

A flash of rage once more set Franco's blood on fire. "We do not!" he
cried. "Out with it! Speak! What do you know of any will?"

"Ah! Now we are getting on famously!" Pasotti said with ironical
sweetness.

Franco could have strangled him.

"Didn't I tell you I have been to Lodi? So of course I know!"

Franco, quite beside himself, protested that he was entirely in the
dark.

"Of course," Pasotti continued, with greater irony than before. "It is
for me to enlighten the gentleman! Then I will inform you that Professor
Gilardoni, who is by no means the friend you believe him to be, went to
Lodi at the end of December, and presented himself before the Marchesa
with a legally worthless copy of a will which he pretends was made by
your late grandfather. This will appoints you, Don Franco, residuary
legatee, in terms attrociously insulting to both the wife and the son of
the testator. So now you know. Indeed, Signor Gilardoni did not betray
his trust, but stated that he had come on his own responsibility, and
without your knowledge."

Franco listened, as pale as death, feeling darkness creeping over his
sight and his soul, mustering all his strength that he might not lose
his head, but be able to give a fitting answer.

"You are right," said he. "Grandmother is right also. It is Professor
Gilardoni who has done wrong. He showed me that will three years ago, on
the night of my marriage. I told him to burn it, and believed he had
done so. If he did not, he deceived me. If he really went to Lodi on the
charming errand you describe, he has committed an act of outrageous
indelicacy and stupidity. You were quite justified in thinking ill of
us. But mark this! I despise my grandmother's money as heartily as I
despise the money of the government, and as this lady has the good
fortune to be the mother of my father, I will never--never, I
say--although she resort to the most base, the most perfidious means of
ruining me--never make use of a document that dishonours her. I am too
m