What spell had come over him?
And what the deuce was the nature of her power over him?
And what the deuce was her own meaning, and feeling, and the motives of her conduct?
It really was necessary, however, that they should in some way come to understand each other.

If he had been becoming for some time past discontented with the state of matters between them, it was evident that Paolina had been becoming ill at ease and unhappy also.

In some fashion or other some more or less plain speaking was evidently needed.
And Paolina herself?
What was her feeling on the subject?
Whence did her unmistakable malaise, distraught behaviour in Ludovico's presence, paling cheeks, hours of reverie, when she should have been busily at work--whence did all this come?
What was really in her mind when she told him that doubtless they both loved each other, and then ended her words with a "but," and a sad shake of her drooping little head?
She had found this man, her first acquaintance, in a strange land, good-natured, pleasant, kind, useful, handsome, protecting and, at the same time, deferential in his manner; and she had liked him.

He had delivered her from the Conte Leandro, and there had come into her mind comparisons between the two men.

He had been on her side in that matter; they had wished the same thing, and had accomplished it against a third person; there had been, as it were, a secret between them on the subject; and hence had grown a bond of union.