man!"

"What things?"

"It is impossible for me to go into details--at least at the present
moment."

"You speak with a strange air of secrecy. Have you nothing definite to
say--no advice to give me?"

"I should advise you not to go to the ball."

"You would! Why?"

"If I gave you my reasons, I am afraid I should only be irritating you
to no purpose."

"Father Rocco, neither your words nor your manner satisfy me. You speak
in riddles; and you sit there in the dark with your face hidden from
me--"

The priest instantly started up and turned his face to the light.

"I recommend you to control your temper, and to treat me with common
courtesy," he said, in his quietest, firmest tones, looking at Fabio
steadily while he spoke.

"We will not prolong this interview," said the young man, calming
himself by an evident effort. "I have one question to ask you, and then
no more to say."

The priest bowed his head, in token that he was ready to listen. He
still stood up, calm, pale, and firm, in the full light of the lamp.

"It is just possible," continued Fabio, "that these letters may refer to
some incautious words which my late wife might have spoken. I ask you
as her spiritual director, and as a near relation who enjoyed her
confidence, if you ever heard her express a wish, in the event of my
surviving her, that I should abstain from marrying again?"

"Did she never express such a wish to you?"

"Never. But why do you evade my question by asking me another?"

"It is impossible for me to reply to your question."

"For what reason?"

"Because it is impossible for me to give answers which must refer,
whether they are affirmative or negative, to what I have heard in
confession."

"We have spoken enough," said Fabio, turning angrily from the priest. "I
expected you to help me in clearing up these mysteries, and you do your
best to thicken them. What your motives are, what your conduct means, it
is impossible for me to know, but I say to you, what I would say in far
other terms, if they were here, to the villains who have written these
letters--no menaces, no mysteries, no conspiracies, will prevent me from
being at the ball to-morrow. I can listen to persuasion, but I scorn
threats. There lies my dress for the masquerade; no power on earth shall
prevent me from wearing it to-morrow night!" He pointed, as he spoke, to
the black domino and half-mask lying on the table.

"No power on _earth!_" repeated Father