I found her weeping bitterly beside her daughter's bed. The child had been awakened in the middle of the night by the noise of the constant going and coming of the frightened servants. She had listened to their comments on the signora's prolonged absence, and, believing that her mother was drowned, she had gone into convulsions. She had barely become calm when I entered, and Bianca was blaming herself for the child's suffering, as if she had wilfully caused it. "O my Bianca," I said to her, "be comforted and rejoice because your child and all those about you love you so passionately. I will love you even more than they do, so that you may be the happiest of women." "Do not say that the others love me," she replied with some bitterness. "It seems to me that under their breaths they are calling this love of mine, which they have already divined, a crime. Their glances are insulting to me, their words wound me, and I greatly fear that they have let slip some imprudent remark in my daughter's hearing. Salomé is openly impertinent to me this morning. It is high time for me to put an end to these insolent comments on my conduct. You see, Nello, they look upon my loving you as a crime, and they approved of my supposed love for the avaricious Lanfranchi. They are all low-minded or foolish creatures. I must inform them this very day that I passed the night, not with my lover, but with my husband. It is the only way to make them respect you and refrain from betraying me." I dissuaded her from acting so hastily. I reminded her that she might perhaps repent; that she had not reflected sufficiently; that I myself needed time to consider her offer seriously; and that she had not sufficiently weighed the consequences of her decision, with respect to its possible future effect upon her daughter. I obtained her promise to be patient and to act prudently.