The doctor, who had found his pulse rather frequent, concluded at once that it was an angry pulse.

He jested a few minutes about the serious nature of the illness, and then took his departure.

Carlino inquired roughly where Jeanne had been, so long, and she did not hesitate to tell him.

She did not, however, mention Benedetto's real name.
"Were you not ashamed," said he, "to be eavesdropping like that ?" Without giving her time to answer, he began protesting against the new tendencies he had discovered in her.
"Tomorrow you will be going to confession, and the day after you will be reciting the rosary!" Underneath his usually tolerant and courteous language, and the liking he displayed for not a few priests, lurked a real anti-religious mania.
The idea that his sister might, some day, draw near to the priests, to faith, to acts of piety, nearly drove him out of his senses.
Jeanne did not answer, but meekly asked if she should read to him, as she was in the habit of doing in the evening.

Carlino declared shortly that he did not wish to be read to, and, pretending to feel draughts, kept her for at least a quarter of an hour, inspecting the doors, the windows, the walls, and the floor itself, with a lighted candle in her hand.