All unconscious of the growth of public feeling against him, and wrapped in that absorption which comes from one dominant idea, he pursued the routine of his parochial life, and went through all the ceremonials of his office, hardly more conscious of what he did than the candles which his sacristan lighted. The confession made to him haunted him night and day. He saw it, as it were, written in letters of blood on the blank, white walls of his bed-chamber, of his sacristy, of his church itself. The murderer was there, at large, unknown to all; at work like any other man in the clear, sweet sunshine, talking and laughing, eating and drinking, walking and sleeping, yet as unsuspected as a child unborn. And all the while Generosa was in prison. There was only one chance left, that she should be acquitted by her judges. But even then the slur and stain of an imputed, though unproven, crime would always rest upon her and make her future dark, her name a by-word in her birth-place. No mere acquittal, leaving doubt and suspicion behind it, would give her back to the light and joy of life. Every man's hand would be against her; every child would point at her as the woman who had been accused of the assassination of her husband. One day he sought Falko Melegari, when the latter was making up the accounts of his stewardship at an old bureau in a deep window-embrasure of the villa. 'You know that the date of the trial is fixed for the tenth of next month?' he said, in a low, stifled voice. The young man, leaning back in his wooden chair, gave a sign of assent. 'And you?' said Don Gesualdo, with a curious expression in his eyes, 'if they absolve her, will you have the courage to prove your own belief in her innocence? Will you marry her when she is set free?' The question was abrupt and unlooked for; Falko changed colour; he hesitated. 'You will not!' said Don Gesualdo. 'I have not said so,' answered the young man, evasively. 'I do not know that she would exact it.' Exact it! Don Gesualdo did not know much of human nature, but he knew what the use of that cold word implied. 'I thought you loved her! I mistook,' he said, bitterly. A rosy flush came for a moment on the wax-like pallor of his face. Falko Melegari looked at him insolently. 'A churchman should not meddle with these things! Love her! I love her--yes. It ruins my life to think of her yonder. I would cut off my right arm to save her; but to marry her if she come out absolved--that is another thing; one's name a by-word, one's credulity laughed at, one's neighbours shy of one--that is another thing, I say. It will not be enough for her judges to acquit her; that will not prove her innocence to all the people here, or to my people at home in my own country.'