Donna Micaela lay thinking that she could have saved Gaetano, but had not wished to do so. But why had she not wished? It seemed to her quite incomprehensible. She began to count up to herself all her reasons for permitting him to rush to destruction. He was an atheist; a socialist; he wished to cause a revolt. That had outweighed everything else when she opened the garden gate for him. It had crushed her love also. She could not now understand it. It was as if a scale full of feathers had weighed down a scale full of gold. “My beautiful boy!” said Donna Elisa, “my beautiful boy! He was already a great man over there in England, and he came home to help us poor Sicilians. And now they have sentenced him like a bandit. People say that they were ready to shoot him, as they shot the others. Perhaps it would have been better if they had done so, Cavaliere. It had been better to have laid him in the church-yard than to know that he was in prison. How will he be able to endure all his suffering? He will not be able to bear it; he will fall ill; he will soon be dead.” At these words, Donna Micaela roused herself from her stupor, and got up from the sofa. She staggered across the room and came in to her father and Donna Elisa, as pale as poor murdered Giannita. She was so weak that she did not dare to cross the floor; she stood at the door and leaned against the door-post. “It is I,” she said; “Donna Elisa, it is I--” The words would not come to her lips. She wrung her hands in despair that she could not speak. Donna Elisa was instantly at her side. She put her arm about her to support her, without paying any attention to Donna Micaela’s attempt to push her away. “You must forgive me, Donna Elisa,” she said, with an almost inaudible voice. “I did it.” Donna Elisa did not heed much what she was saying. She saw that she had fever, and thought that she was delirious. Donna Micaela’s lips worked; she plainly wished to say something, but only a few words were audible. It was impossible to understand what she meant. “Against him, as against my father,” she said, over and over. And then she said something about bringing misfortune on all who loved her. Donna Elisa had got her down on a chair, and Donna Micaela sat there and kissed her old, wrinkled hands, and asked her to forgive her what she had done. Yes, of course, of course, Donna Elisa forgave her. Donna Micaela looked her sharply in the face with great, feverish eyes, and asked if it were true. It was really true. Then she laid her head on Donna Elisa’s shoulder and sobbed, thanked her, and said that she could not live if she did not obtain her forgiveness. She had sinned against no one so much as against her. Could she forgive her? “Yes, yes,” said Donna Elisa again and again, and thought that the other was out of her head from fever and fright. “There is something I ought to tell you,” said Donna Micaela. “I know it, but you do not know it. You will not forgive me if you hear it.”