“Welcome, welcome, my angel!” he cried, springing up, but quickly pulling a grimace of pain as the wound in the shoulder gave a twinge. “Ah! what good fortune! You are here, and so am I. See what kind of a man is Signor Di Bello! To me a knife in the shoulder is a trifle. Already I am well enough to go with you to the church. Are you ready, _mia vita_?” “Wait a few days,” she said, with her frigid calm, “then I will tell you.” “_Porco Diavolo!_ Wait, wait! Always wait. I tell you I can not wait.” “Why?” “I have my reason.” “What is it?” “Ah! _carina_, don’t you know? Well, it is because I can not live without you.” He said it with his upturned eyes pouring forth a sea of adoration. Still it was only half the truth. Had he disclosed the other half he would have told of his sister’s letter saying that she intended to sail for New York within a week. His spirit had quaked at the thought of bringing a wife to Casa Di Bello when the redoubtable Carolina should be on the ground, and the conviction grew upon him that when the moment came he should not be able to muster the courage needed for such an enterprise. Wherefore he resolved to wed Juno and plant her in Casa Di Bello in advance of Carolina’s re-entrance upon the scene. “You have your reason for not waiting,” she said, impressed not at all by his amatory demonstration. “Good. I have my reason for waiting.” She walked out of the shop without saying more, leaving him wondering if, after all, he were going to lose her. As she made her way through the hordes of Mulberry she was the target of every eye and tongue. Men gazed at her in admiration and women pelted her with scornful darts, because of her proud bearing as well as her coquetry that had set blood against blood. “A rogue of a woman,” said a brown daughter of Sicily, fanning the flies from her naked babe. “Rather. Who knows what she is or where she came from?” To all of this and much more Juno moved on in haughty disregard. At the mouth of the Alley of the Moon she was greeted with profit-receiving deference by her landlady, Luigia the Garlic Woman, who handed her a letter. Bertino’s writing! Seated on the bed in her darkling cubicle upstairs, she read the missive, which was postmarked Jamaica, Long Island: CARA JUNO: Did I kill him? Address Post Office, Jamaica, Long Island. B. For a moment she sat staring at but not seeing a gaudy print of the Sistine Madonna that hung in a faint shaft of light. Then she sprang up and hurried down the narrow staircase to the restaurant. Seated in the place on the long bench that Signor Di Bello occupied when Bertino broke up their little meeting, she called for writing materials and penned these lines: CARO BERTINO: Your uncle is very low. Will write soon. J.