“I once distrusted you and watched you in secret,” he said, speaking after a short silence, thoughtfully, and with a strange, tranquil sadness in his voice.  “And now, what I did by you, you do by me.  You put the hope of your life once in my hands.  Is it because they were not worthy of the trust that discovery and ruin overtake me, and that you are the instrument of the retribution?  Can this be the decree of Heaven—­or is it nothing but the blind justice of chance?”

He looked upward, doubtingly, to the lustrous sky above him, and sighed.  Nanina’s eyes still followed his mechanically.  He seemed to feel their influence, for he suddenly looked down at her again.

“What keeps you silent?  Why are you afraid?” he said.  “I can do you no harm, with your dog at your side, and the workmen yonder within call.  I can do you no harm, and I wish to do you none.  Go back to Pisa; tell what you have heard, restore the man you love to himself, and ruin me.  That is your work; do it!  I was never your enemy, even when I distrusted you.  I am not your enemy now.  It is no fault of yours that a fatality has been accomplished through you—­no fault of yours that I am rejected as the instrument of securing a righteous restitution to the Church.  Rise, child, and go your way, while I go mine, and prepare for what is to come.  If we never meet again, remember that I parted from you without one hard saying or one harsh look—­parted from you so, knowing that the first words you speak in Pisa will be death to my character, and destruction to the great purpose of my life.”

Speaking these words, always with the same calmness which had marked his manner from the first, he looked fixedly at her for a little while, sighed again, and turned away.  Just before he disappeared among the trees, he said “Farewell,” but so softly that she could barely hear it.  Some strange confusion clouded her mind as she lost sight of him.  Had she injured him, or had he injured her?  His words bewildered and oppressed her simple heart.  Vague doubts and fears, and a sudden antipathy to remaining any longer near the summer-house, overcame her.  She started to her feet, and, keeping the dog still at her side, hurried from the garden to the highroad.  There, the wide glow of sunshine, the sight of the city lying before her, changed the current of her thoughts, and directed them all to Fabio and to the future.

A burning impatience to be back in Pisa now possessed her.  She hastened toward the city at her utmost speed.  The doctor was reported to be in the palace when she passed the servants lounging in the courtyard.  He saw the moment, she came into his presence, that something had happened, and led her away from the sick-room into Fabio’s empty study.  There she told him all.