"It is scarcely credible, but true. He insisted upon my giving him all my earnings; when I refused to do so,--not for my own sake, for I could live just as happily on bread-and-water as you could surrounded by all your luxuries, but for the sake of my child, who, at that time, was almost starving, for I had to bestow all the pittance I could scrape together to procure it a nurse and a lodging. It was Flavio induced me to steal the lace. I did so in a moment of desperation, when I fully believed he would have murdered me if I had refused to obey him. I had it by me so long; for, in the first instance, I did not venture to offer it for sale; and latterly, I thought it would be difficult to procure the full price. At last I heard that you were searching for old lace, and thought I was safe in your hands. Circumstances have turned out differently. I sent to Flavio to tell him that I had found a customer for it, and till the very moment I was arrested I was perfectly ignorant that he and that scoundrel Emmanuel were in close communion together; but when I was dragged out of my small, miserable lodging, like a condemned criminal, rather than as a person only accused of a crime, Emmanuel, who stood by, with a glow of triumph over his pale, miserable, withered countenance, whispered to me, 'Thank Flavio for this; he denounced you for the reward.'" "He will escape you," I said; "of course he will imagine that you intend to be revenged upon him." "He will not escape me long, for I know that he imagines me ignorant of the woman with whom he is now living, and who hates him with a bitterness second only to my own. She will give him up to justice, and deservedly so. A greater villain does not exist. I cannot tell you what his whole conduct has been to me--his acts of barbarous cruelty. Even my child, whom I dote on, cannot make me forgive the father all his iniquity." "And this poor child?" I said. "Ah, that is the thought that lays next my heart with a weight which I can scarce sustain!" And she clasped her hands to her bosom, as though to express the greatness of her affliction. "What I ask you is to see the child, to give her this lock of hair and likeness. And may I venture one thing more,--may I ask you to take care that she is not left utterly destitute?" And so saying, she put a small purse in my hand, saying, "It is very light, but it contains all that I possess." I returned her the purse, as she required every baiocchi to add to her comforts in the prison; but I set her mind at rest by promising to see her child the next morning, and to do all that lay in my power for its support and protection.