This avenue, too--I wish we had not come here--it was his favorite walk.

Besides," she added, with a slight accent of regret, "after all he was the father of my child--you must think of that." "By Heaven!" exclaimed Guido, fiercely, "do I not think of it?
Ay--and I curse him for every kiss he stole from your lips!" I listened half stupefied.

Here was a new phase of the marriage law! Husbands were thieves then--they "stole" kisses; only lovers were honest in their embraces! Oh, my dear friend--my more than brother--how near you were to death at that moment! Had you but seen my face peering pallidly through the dusky leaves--could you have known the force of the fury pent up within me--you would not have valued your life at one baiocco! "Why did you marry him ?" he asked, after a little pause, during which he toyed with the fair curls that floated against his breast.
She looked up with a little mutinous pout, and shrugged her shoulders.
"Why?
Because I was tired of the convent, and all the stupid, solemn ways of the nuns; also because he was rich, and I was horribly poor.

I cannot bear to be poor! Then he loved me"-- here her eyes glimmered with malicious triumph--"yes--he was mad for me--and--" "You loved him ?" demanded Guido, almost fiercely.
"Ma che!" she answered, with an expressive gesture.

"I suppose I did--for a week or two.