She confided in me a little in those days, but ever with a most saintly resignation.

She had been sold into wedlock, she admitted, with a man who might have been her father, and she confessed to finding her lot a cruel one; but confessed it with the air of one who intends none the less to bear her cross with fortitude.
And then, one day, I did a very foolish thing.

We had been reading together, she and I, as was become our custom.

She had fetched me a volume of the lascivious verse of Panormitano, and we sat side by side on the marble seat in the garden what time I read to her, her shoulder touching mine, the fragrance of her all about me.
She wore, I remember, a clinging gown of russet silk, which did rare justice to the splendid beauty of her, and her heavy ruddy hair was confined in a golden net that was set with gems--a gift from my Lord Gambara.

Concerning this same gift words had passed but yesterday between Giuliana and her husband; and I deemed the doctor's anger to be the fruit of a base and unworthy mind.
I read, curiously enthralled--though whether by the beauty of the lines or the beauty of the woman there beside me I could not then have told you.
Presently she checked me.