"But listen, my dear fellow, you don't understand. I don't for a moment mean to say that your wife is not a perfectly honest woman; what I do mean is--suppose she were actually to marry some one else? And still you don't understand? Upon my word, this Christian is extraordinarily slow at taking an idea! One would suppose you were free, you are so innocent. Perhaps, though," he added, "you don't know that people can get divorces nowadays. Any woman whose husband has been sentenced for more than ten years, can be divorced and marry some one else." Costantino threw his head up for a moment, and his sunken eyes opened round and wide; then the lids dropped again. "Giovanna would never do it," he said simply. There was another brief interval of silence. "Giovanna would not do it," he repeated; yet, even as he pronounced the words, he had a strange sensation, as though a frozen steel were slashing his heart in twain; one part was convulsed with agony, while the other shrieked again and again: "She would never do it! she would never do it!" And neither part gave a single thought to the little, dead child. "She would not do it, she would not do it," reiterated one half of his heart with loud insistence, until, at last, the other was convinced, and they came together again, but only to find that both were now devoured by that torturing pain. "See here," said the _King of Spades_, "I don't believe she would either. But tell me one thing; now that the child is dead, and now that the mother has nothing more to hope for, from either him or you, would it not, after all, be the very best thing she could do, supposing she had the opportunity? For my own part, I think that if a chance came along for her to marry again, she would be very foolish not to take it." "Brontu Dejas!" said Costantino to himself. But he only repeated: "No, she would not do it." "But you are a Christian, my friend; if she were to do it, would she not be in the right?" "But I am going back some day." "How is she to know that?" "Why, I have told her so all along, and I shall never cease telling her so." The _King of Spades_ had a strong inclination to laugh, but he restrained himself, feeling quite ashamed of the impulse. Presently he murmured, as though in answer to some inward question: "It is all utter foolishness." "Yes, of course," said Costantino. But all the time, he was thinking of Brontu Dejas, of his house with the portico, of his _tancas_ and his flocks; and then of Giovanna's poverty. Alas! the knife was cutting deep into his heart now.