Then a recollection came to him, and he resigned himself to the telling of a lie: "Santobono's mind has always been somewhat unhinged," said he, "and I know that he has hated me ever since I refused to help him to get a brother of his, one of our former gardeners, out of prison.

Deadly spite often has no more serious cause.

He must have thought that he had reason to be revenged on me." Thereupon Benedetta, exhausted, unable to argue any further, sank upon a chair with a despairing gesture: "Ah! God, God! I no longer know--and what matters it now that my Dario is in such danger?
There's only one thing to be done, he must be saved.

How long they are over what they are doing in that room--why does not Victorine come for us!" The silence again fell, full of terror.

Without speaking the Cardinal took the basket of figs from the table and carried it to a cupboard in which he locked it.