“Sir,” I began, “it is true that I love, and have always loved, your wife; and it is true that I have been wicked enough to declare my passion.  But it is also true that by her, and by her alone, I have been convinced of my presumption.”  Here he held up his hand.

“Stop there.  You say you have been convinced.  How were you convinced?  Where were you convinced?  Let me understand you.  Was it in there?” He jerked his hand towards the fatal cupboard.

“Yes,” I replied, “it was in there.  I was forced to overhear your conversation with Donna Aurelia, which proved to me that I am less than nothing to her, and that you are all the world.”

He snorted, scoffing at the thought.  “We shall see soon enough,” he said bitterly, “who and what I am.”

I continued:  “If you think that I have injured you—­I say nothing of my lady or of myself—­you are horribly deceived.  On the contrary, I have done you a service.  You have the proof to your hand that you are the husband of a pattern among ladies.”  Here, once more, he looked at the cupboard, and “Ma!” he said, and shrugged.  After this, so long as I could speak to him, he tapped his foot.

“Punish me,” I advised him; “use me as you will; kill me—­I shall not defend myself.  I have never yet refused to take the consequences of my acts.  But over my dead body, if you are a true man, you will give thanks to God for the gift of such a wife as you have.”

I was indignant, honestly, and, as I think, rightly so; but again he misunderstood me.

He got up and threatened me with his great forefinger.  “Enough of your sermons, sir,” he said.  “Have I lived and taught sucklings all these years to be told my duty to God Almighty?  Will you teach me, forsooth, for what I am to give thanks, and whom I am to correct or chastise?  Wait you there, young gentleman—­wait you there until I know more about you and my pattern lady.”  He turned his back upon me, and, wrenching open the chamber door, called harshly upon Aurelia.  Immediately—­and no doubt she had been quaking for the summons—­my adored mistress came trembling out, her hair tumbled about her shoulders, her hands at her neck.  Her feet were bare upon the flags, her great and mournful eyes loomed hollow in her face.  They were my instant reproof, for now, and now to the full, I saw a fatal consequence of my enthusiastic action.  Unhappy Francis, what hadst thou done?  Thou hadst intended to abase thyself in her service—­and betrayed her.  Thou hadst intended to honour, and condemned her to dishonour!  Alas, thou hadst gone near to ruining the purest and loveliest of women by revealing those very things which proved her so.

The doctor, at his pitch of most savage and relentless calm, pointed to me and the cupboard—­to the criminal and his lurking den together.  “Look at those, woman,” he said ominously, deliberately, but she could not or would not; and, before she could collect her wits, what must need old Nonna do but make bad worse, and, running, thrust herself in between, and wag her hand under the doctor’s nose.