Yonder maiden, does she breathe the same charge against me ?' 'Not so,' replied Gaudiosus.

'Of you she said no evil.' 'Yet I scarce think'-- he smiled coldly--'that she made profession of love for me ?' 'My son, her speech was maidenly.

She spoke of herself as erstwhile your betrothed; no more than that.' As he uttered these words, the priest rose.

He had an uneasy look, as if he feared that infirmity of will and fondness for gossip had betrayed him into some neglect of spiritual obligation.
'It is better,' he said, 'that we should converse no more.

I know not what your purposes may be, nor do they concern me I remain here to pray by the dead, and I shall despatch a messenger to my brother presbyter, that we may prepare for the burial.