But immediately he was assailed by scruples.
His intelligence and his Christian sentiment were in a state of contradiction.

He was aware that he was not liked by the lady who had married the Professor's son, a naval officer, now in the East; he saw that his return to Villa Mayda would be displeasing to her, and a source of discord between her father-in-law and herself.

But how could he say so now, without implying a want of justice and of charity in a person whom, from the very fact that she was his enemy, he was especially bound to love?
He entreated the Professor to let him go to Sant' Onofrio.
The change was so sudden that it surprised Mayda.

He thought a moment, understood, and then said, knitting his brows: "Do you wish me never to forgive some one for something ?" Benedetto offered no further opposition.

Only when that night the moment came to go down to the carriage, and he realised that he could not stand alone, he said to the Professor, smiling, and placing his hand on his friend's arm: "You know that, if I continue thus, you will have a dead man in your house to-morrow or the day after ?" The Professor replied that he would not lie to him, that this was possible, but not certain.
"You know," Benedetto continued, no longer smiling, "that first you will have--" "I understand what you mean," the Professor interrupted him.