“Faithful heart,” she murmured. “And I had used you so cruelly for the deception you practised. But you merited my cruelty, did you not, Lazzaro? Say that you did, else must I perish of remorse.” “Perhaps I deserved it, Madonna. But perhaps not so much as you bestowed, had you but understood my motives,” I said unguardedly. “If I had understood your motives?” she mused. “Aye, there is much I do not understand. Even in this night’s transactions there are not wanting things that remain mysterious despite the explanations you have supplied me. Tell me, Lazzaro, what was it led you to suppose that I still lived? “I did not suppose it,” I blundered like a fool, never seeing whither her question led. “You did not?” she cried, in deep surprise; and now, when it was too late, I understood. “What was it, then, induced you to lift the coffin-lid?” “You ask me more than I can tell you,” I answered, almost roughly. “Do you thank God, Madonna, that it was so, and never plague your mind to learn the ‘why’ of it.” She looked at me with eyes that were singularly luminous. “But I must know,” she insisted. “Have I not the right? Tell me now: Was it that you wished to see my face again before they gave me over to the grave?” “Perhaps it was that, Madonna,” I answered in confusion, avoiding her glance. Then—“Shall we be going?” I suggested fiercely. But she never heeded that suggestion. She spoke as if she had not heard, and the words she uttered seemed to turn me into stone. “Did you love me then so much, dear Lazzaro?” I swung round to face her now, and I know that my face was white—whiter than hers had been when I had beheld her in her coffin. My eyes seemed to burn in their sockets as they met hers. A madness overtook me and whelmed my better judgment. I had undergone so much that day through grief, and that night through a hundred emotions, that I was no longer fully master of myself. Her words robbed me, I think, of my last lingering shred of reason. “Love you, Madonna?” I echoed, in a voice that was as unlike my own as was the mood that then possessed me. “You are the air I breathe, the sun that lights my miserable world. You are dearer to me than honour, sweeter than life. You are the guardian angel of my existence, the saint to whom I have turned morning and evening in my prayers for grace. Do I love you, Madonna—?” And there I paused. The thought of what I did and what the consequences must be rushed suddenly upon me. I shivered as a man shivers in awaking. I dropped on my knees before her, bowing my head and flinging wide my arms. “Forgive, Madonna,” I cried entreatingly. “Forgive and forget. Never again will I offend.”