h I have been the partner of your hearth and slept on your
breast--all these years in which I have had no thought but, however
humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you
had read my heart, and seen there but yourself and your child--I grieve
to think that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood
by my side at the altar."

"Trust!" repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience-stricken; "why do
you say 'trust?' In what have I distrusted you? I am sure," he
continued, with the artful volubility of guilt, "that I never doubted
your fidelity--hooked-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be; never
pryed into your letters; never inquired into your solitary walks; never
heeded your flirtations with that good-looking Parson Dale; never kept
the money; and never looked into the account-books!" Mrs. Riccabocca
refused even a smile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she
seemed scarcely to hear them.

"Can you think," she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still
its struggles for relief in sobs--"can you think that I could have
watched, and thought, and tasked my poor mind so constantly, to
conjecture what might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long
since, that you have secrets known to your daughter--your servant--not
to me? Fear not--the secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them
to your innocent child. Besides, do I not know your nature? and do I not
love you because I know it?--it is for something connected with these
secrets that you leave your home. You think that I should be
incautious--imprudent. You will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to
prepare for your departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you,
husband."

Mrs. Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian's arm.

"O father, can you resist this? Trust her!--trust her! I am a woman like
her! I answer for her woman's faith. Be yourself--ever nobler than all
others, my own father."

"_Diavolo!_ Never one door shuts but another opens," groaned Riccabocca.
"Are you a fool, child? Don't you see that it was for your sake only I
feared--and would be cautious?"

"For mine! O then, do not make me deem myself mean, and the cause of
meanness. For mine! Am I not your daughter--the descendant of men who
never feared?"

Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended she led her
father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now gained.

"Jemima--wife mine