As Miss Volumnia's interruptions became frequent towards the close of this narrative, it may be best to summarise it, as near as may be, in the words of the photograph, which had said, or seemed to say: "I did indeed tremble to think what misconstruction might be put on half-heard words of this interview of this young English maiden with your husband. For I could remember well how at the little Castello in the Apennines Icilia Ciaranfi, a girl of great spirit, finding her new-made husband enacting some such pleasantry as this--but quite blamelessly--with Donnina Magliabecchi, stabbed both to death there and then; and her great grief when Donnina's lover Beppe made it clear to her that this was but a foolish jest to which he himself was privy. And thinking of this painful matter I rejoiced that you, Signora, yourself should have been guided by counsels of moderation, at most withdrawing for a term--so I understood--to the house of a relation as to a haven, when no doubt all asperity of feeling would soon give place to forgiveness. I could see that in your case, had you yielded to the mistaken impulse of Icilia, no such consolation as she found could have been yours. For I understood this--though I was young at the time--that so deeply was Beppe touched by Icilia's remorse for her rash action, and she so ready to give her love in compensation for what he had lost, that each flew as it were to the embrace of the other, and the two of them fled then and there, and thence Icilia escaped the officers of Justice. Now this surely would have been an impossible resource to yourself and the lover of _la Sera_, who, unless I am mistaken in thinking that those who 'keep company' are lovers in your land, was the person I heard spoken of as 'The Dust.' Which is in our tongue '_La Mondezza_.' But I understood that while he was a man, and in that sense competent for Love, although called by a name fitter for a woman, yet was he socially on a level with those whom we others in Italy call _spazzini_, and no fit mate for a Signora of gentle birth and breeding.