‘I say that which I know to be the truth. When she left me that night at the inn on the mountain road above Borgo Pace, after a quarrel that had been just a trifle more bitter than our customary quarrels, you were waiting for her with a carriage a quarter of a mile from the inn. You were seen there; she was seen to enter the carriage with you. Tolerably direct evidence, I fancy. For my daughter’s sake--to save my own pride and honour--I gave out that my wife had died suddenly at that lonely inn in the Apennines. Her father was dead, her brother sunk in the gulf of Parisian dissipation. There was no one interested in making any inquiries as to the details of her death or burial. The fiction passed unquestioned. For me it was a truth. She died to me in the hour she abandoned and dishonoured me; and all trust in my fellow-men, all love for my race, died within me at the same time.’ ‘You are a man to be pitied,’ said Antonio, gravely. ‘You have borne the burden of an imaginary dishonour. You have wronged your wife, you have wronged me; but you have wronged yourself most of all. Did you get no letter from the Convent of Santa Cecilia?’ ‘What letter? No. I had no letter. I left the inn at daybreak on the morning after my wife’s flight, followed on the track of your carriage--traced you as far as Citta di Castello--there lost you--caught the trail again at Perugia, followed you to Narni, and there again missed you.’ ‘And you believed that your wife was my companion in that journey?’ ‘What else should I believe? It was the truth. I heard everywhere that you were accompanied by a lady--a lady whose description answered to my wife.’ ‘Possibly. A tavern-keeper’s description is somewhat vague. The lady was my sister, whom I was taking from the convent of the Sacred Heart at Urbino, where she had been educated, to meet her betrothed in Rome, where she was to be married. Your wife took refuge at the convent of Santa Cecilia on the night she left you. My sister and I went there with her--left her in the charge of the Reverend Mother, who promised her an asylum there as long as she chose to remain. She was to write to you immediately, explaining her conduct, and telling you that your violence had compelled her to this course, and that she could only return to you under certain conditions. I heard the Reverend Mother promise that a messenger should be despatched to the inn with the letter as soon as it was daylight.’