But yet the housekeeper, though loyalty itself, was, in her own secret thoughts, not a little troubled at the change she saw in her master. She put it down to the score of his agitation at the peril of Generosa Fè; but this in itself seemed to her unfitting in one of his sacred calling. A mere light-o'-love and saucebox, as she had always herself called the miller's wife, was wholly unworthy to occupy, even in pity, the thoughts of so holy a man. There could not be a doubt that she had given that knife-stroke among the canes in the dusk of the dawn of St. Peter and St. Paul, thought Candida, among whose virtues charity had small place; but what had the parocco to do with it? In her rough way, motherly and unmannerly, she ventured to take her master to task for so much interest in a sinner. "The people of Marca say you think too much about that foul business; they even whisper that you neglect your holy duties," she said to him, as she served the frugal supper of cabbage soaked in oil. "There will always be crimes as long as the world wags on, but that is no reason why good souls should put themselves out about that which they cannot help." Gesualdo said nothing, but she saw the nerves of his mouth quiver. "I have no business to lecture your reverence on your duties," she added, tartly; "but they do say that so much anxiety for a guilty woman is a manner of injustice to innocent souls." Gesualdo struck his closed hand on the table with concentrated expression of passion. "How dare you say that she is guilty?" he cried. "Who has proved her so?" Candida looked at him with shrewd suspicious eyes as she set down the bottle of vinegar. "I have met with nobody who doubts it," she said, cruelly, "except your reverence, and her lover up yonder at the villa." "You are all far too ready to believe evil," said Gesualdo, with nervous haste; and he arose and pushed aside the untasted dish and went out of the house. "He is beside himself for that jade's sake," thought Candida, and, after waiting a little while to see if he returned, she sat down and ate the cabbage. Whether there were as many crimes in the world as flies on the pavement in summer, she saw no reason why that good food should be wasted.