"Do you not understand that I wish to sleep now, girl," he interrupted angrily, "and to be alone? Why do you go on talking in this wild fashion and making yourself ill? If you do not feel that my honour forces me to leave you, then you would never have suited me. I am no doll in your lap to fondle and play with. My path is cut out for me, and it is too narrow for two. Show me the skin on which I am to lie to-night; and then--let us forget one another!" "And if you were to drive me from you with blows I will not leave you! If death were to come and stand between us, I would rescue you from him with these strong arms of mine. In life and death--you are mine, Filippo!" "Silence!" cried he, very loudly. The colour rushed to his very brow as he with both arms pushed the passionate pleader from him. "Silence! And let there be an end of this, to-day, and for ever. Am I a creature or thing to be seized upon by whoever will and whoever takes a fancy to me? I am a man, and whoever would have me I must give myself up to freely. You have sighed for me for seven years--have you any right therefore in the eighth year to make me act to my dishonour? If you would bribe me, you have chosen the means ill. Seven years ago I loved you because you were different from what you now are. If you had flown round my neck then and sought to wrest my heart from me with threats, I would have met your threats with defiance as I do to-day. All is over now between us, and I know that the pity I felt for you was not love. For the last time, where is my room?" He had said all this in harsh and cutting tones, and as he stopped speaking the sound of his own voice seemed to give him a pang. But he said no more, though wondering silently that she took it much more quietly than he had expected. He would gladly now, with friendly words, have appeased any stormy outbreak of her grief. But she passed coldly by him, opened a heavy wooden door not far from the hearth, pointed silently to the iron bolt on it, and then stepped back again to the fireside. [Illustration: "HE BOLTED THE DOOR BEHIND HIM."] So he went into the room and bolted the door behind him. But he stayed for some time close by the door, listening to what she was doing. No movement was heard in the room, and in the whole house there was no sound save from the restless dog, the horse stirring in the stable, and the moaning of the wind outside as it scattered the last remains of the fog. For the moon in all its splendour had risen, and when he pulled away a large bundle of heather out of the hole in the wall that served as a window, the room was lit up by its rays. He saw then that he was evidently in Fenice's room. Against the wall stood her clean, narrow bed, an open chest beside it, a small table, a wooden bench; the walls were hung with pictures, saints and Madonnas; a holy water bowl was seen beneath the crucifix by the door.