One night, when Brontu was away from home, Aunt Martina heard, or thought she heard, a low murmur of voices in Giovanna's room. Had Brontu come back? the old woman wondered, and if so, why? Could anything have happened at the sheepfolds? Tormented by the thought, she finally got up. The door was open, and she listened a moment. Yes, undoubtedly some one was talking in Giovanna's room. Not wishing to strike a light, she attempted to cross the room that separated her own chamber from Giovanna's, in the dark. She made a misstep, however, and, trying to recover herself, overthrew a chair. "Holy Mary!" she muttered, setting it right again. Then she groped her way to the door, felt for the handle, and tried to open it. It was locked. "What do you want?" demanded Giovanna's voice instantly. "Has Brontu got back?" "No; why?" "I thought I heard some one talking. Why have you got the door locked?" "Is it locked? I must have done it without thinking," said Giovanna innocently. "I'll open it right away; just wait a moment. I was talking to the baby; she wouldn't go to sleep." "Mariedda!" called the grandmother. But there was no response. "Is she asleep now?" "She is just falling asleep." In the pause that ensued a painful drama was enacted in the breasts of the two women. "I will get up now and open the door," said Giovanna presently in a strained voice. But the old woman made no reply. Motionless, a cold chill creeping through her, she _felt_ the horrible truth flash into her mind like a sudden glare of blinding light. Giovanna must have a lover, and that lover could be none other than Costantino Ledda. In that moment of searching illumination a thousand little incidents to which she had paid no heed at the time, a thousand little unconsidered trifles, rose up to confront her, and she trembled from head to foot, in a paroxysm of grief and rage. Yet, when Giovanna repeated: "I will open the door right away," she was able to control herself, and answer quietly: "It's not worth while; stay where you are." Then she turned, and, crossing the room again in the dark, said to herself with a sort of calm fury: "Now is the time to show them that old Martina is no fool!" Her first impulse was to hurry downstairs and look out to see if any one had climbed from Giovanna's window to the roof below, which, in turn, gave on another and still lower roof. But she restrained herself, reflecting very sensibly that if Giovanna saw that she was suspected she would instantly be on her guard. "No, no; this is a time to dissemble, old Martina; to pretend, spy, listen, watch--and then?" What was to happen afterwards? The _afterwards_ suggested such a multitude of wretched possibilities that the old woman threw herself on her bed in a torment of agonised conjecture.