"However, ungrateful though they be, _I_ shall keep on. I was a fool to get married, I see that now, if it had not been for that attack of typhoid--but I shall keep on sacrificing myself, I can't help it, I am never happy unless I am doing something for others. What do I care for money for myself?" He threw out his arms in a noble gesture, at which Ferrati could not help smiling. "I must think of the future of the children! By the way," he added almost shamefacedly, taking Ferrati's arm, "let us go to them and see that they have taken no harm--you see I don't bear malice--" "Let us finish all that there is to say first," said Ferrati, anxious to wring some concession for Ragna from this unusually promising occasion. "We were talking of your wife." "Oh, well, yes, Ragna. She was most insolent to me last night, mad with jealousy and perfectly insufferable--you don't know what it is, Rico, to have a jealous wife! just think, she imagined some perfectly ridiculous thing between me and that slattern, Carolina. It seems impossible to have so little _criterio_. You wouldn't believe, Rico, the things she said! She almost got the better of my patience!" Ferrati smiled grimly. "We had more words this morning and in a fit of rage she said she would leave me, and I told her to go--_a quel paese_. _Peggio per lei!_" His voice rose as he found a vent for his repressed feelings, he almost forgot Ferrati's presence in the joy of shifting to other shoulders the blame which in his heart he knew to be his. He paused, drawn to his full height, his eyes burning. "It is always the same story 'put a beggar on horseback and he'll ride to the Devil!' I married her out of the gutter--" "I beg your pardon, Egidio," broke in Ferrati's stern voice, "you did no such thing and if you set any value on my friendship, you will never repeat those words." Valentini cast a furtive side glance at him. "Oh, well, have it as you will. I married her _colla camicia_--it amounts to the same--she has nothing of her own, so the worse for her if she goes off, as she will soon find out. Then she will beg to be taken back and I won't, I swear I won't." "What!" cried Ferrati horrified, "do you mean to say you have actually driven away your wife, the mother of your child?" "If she went it was of her own accord." "Then she has gone?" Had he come too late? Had Ragna actually found courage to throw off her bondage? "When I came in, Assunta told me that the padrona had Nando call her a carriage just after luncheon, and she has not come back yet." Suddenly he flung himself on a chair by the table, his fingers clutching his hair, prey to a violent fit of self-pity.