"For Lazzaro Biancomonte would never have betrayed me.

Nor could he have betrayed me if he would, for after your men had searched the hut in which I was hidden, I walked to Cattolica thinking foolishly that I should be safer there." Lackaday! She had told him the very thing he had sought to know.

Yet to make doubly sure he pursued the scent a little farther.
"Indeed it seems to me that had I tortured him I had given him no more than he deserved for having abandoned you in that hut.

Madonna, I tremble to think of the harm that might have come to you through that knave's desertion." And he scowled across at me, much as the Pharisee might have scowled upon the publican.
"He is no knave," she answered, and I could have groaned to hear her working my undoing, though not by so much as a sign might I inspire her with caution, for that sign must have been seen by others.

"Nor did he abandon me.