"Good Ser Vicario," he said, impatiently, "you are the keeper of our souls, no doubt, but not quite to such a point as that. Has Tassilo sent you to me, or she?" he added, with a gleam of suspicion in his eyes. "No one has sent me." "Why, then----" "Because, if you do not go, there will be tragedy and misery. Tasso Tassilo is not a man to make you welcome to his couch. I have known Generosa since she was a little child: we were both born on the Bocca d'Arno. She is of a warm nature, but not a deep one; and if you go away she will forget. Tassilo is a rude man and a hard one; he gives her all she has; he has many claims on her, for in his way he has been generous and tender. You are a stranger; you can only ruin her life; you can with ease find another _gattaria_ far away in another province: why will you not go? If you really loved her you would go." Falko laughed. "Dear Don Gesualdo, you are a holy man, but you know nothing of love." Gesualdo winced a little again. It was the second time this had been said to him this evening. "Is it love," he said, after a pause, "to risk her murder by her husband? I tell you Tassilo is not a man to take his dishonor quietly." "Who cares what Tassilo does?" said the young steward, petulantly. "If he touches a hair of her head I will make him die a thousand deaths." "All those are words," said Gesualdo. "You cannot mend one crime by another, and you cannot protect a woman from her husband's just vengeance. There is only one way by which to save her from the danger you have dragged her into. It is for you to go away." "I will go away when this house walks a mile," said Falko. "Not before. Go away!" he echoed, in wrath. "What! run like a mongrel dog before Tassilo's anger? What! leave her all alone to curse me as a faithless coward? What! go away, when all my life and my soul, and all the light of my eyes, is in Marca? Don Gesualdo, you are a good man, but you are mad. You must pardon me if I speak roughly. Your words make me beside myself." "Do you believe in no duty, then?" "I believe in the duty of every honest lover," said Falko, with vehemence, "and that duty is to do everything that the loved one wishes. She is bound to a cur; she is unhappy; she has not even any children to comfort her; she is like a beautiful flower shut up in a cellar, and she loves me--me!--and you bid me go away! Don Gesualdo, keep to your church offices, and leave the loves of others alone. What should you know of them? Forgive me if I am rude. You are a holy man, but you know nothing at all of men and women." "I do not know much," said Gesualdo, meekly.