"I understand very well, signor captain," she said with increasing coldness, "that you ask for no other reward but my esteem; but I repeat that I have proved it to you on this very occasion, and I think that your pride should be satisfied." "Yes, signora, my pride; but it is not a question of my pride alone. Nor are you sufficiently well acquainted with it to measure its extent and to know whether it is not superior to any pecuniary sacrifice that you could make in my favor. I do not want your will, I want no part of your fortune, now or ever, do you understand?" And he knelt at her feet and took her hand with savage vehemence. Agatha rose, and yielding to an indignant, perhaps injudicious impulse, she took the will from the console. "Since that is so," she said, trying to tear it, "it is as well that this fortune should be neither mine nor yours, for the recovery of this paper is the least important service you have rendered me, captain; and had it not been connected with another of much greater importance, I should never have asked you to do it. Let me destroy this will, and then you can ask me for a legitimate share of my affection, without my blushing to listen to you." But the parchment resisted the efforts of her weak hands, and the Piccinino had time to take it from her and place it under a large piece of Roman mosaic, which lay on the console, and which she would have had even more difficulty in lifting. "Let us put this aside," he said, with a smile, "and think no more about it. Let us suppose even that it never existed; we are well aware that it cannot be a bond between us, and that you owe me nothing in exchange for your fortune. I know that you are already rich enough to do without these millions; I know too that, if you were penniless, you would not give your friendship as the reward of a mere pecuniary service which you expected to pay for with money. I admire your pride, signora; I appreciate it, and I am proud to appreciate it. Ah! now that we have put that prosaic thought out of our hearts, I feel much happier, for I hope! I feel much bolder, too, for the friendship of such a woman as you seems to me so desirable that I would risk everything to obtain it." "Do not speak of friendship," said Agatha, pushing him away, for he was beginning to handle her long tresses and to wind them about his arm as if to chain himself to her; "speak of the gratitude I owe you; it is very great, I shall never deny it, and I will prove it to you when occasion offers, against your will if I must. The service you have rendered me entitles you to services from me, and some day we shall be quits! But friendship implies mutual sympathy, and, in order to obtain mine, you must earn it and deserve it." "What must I do?" cried the Piccinino, vehemently. "Speak! oh! I implore you, tell me what I must do to win your love!"