I know the Rocca; I told you of it."
"So I went up in the evening for the sunset: I had
nothing to do. He was in the garden: it belongs to a friend
of his."
"And you talked."
"It was very awkward for me. But I had to talk: he
seemed to make me. You see he thought I was here as a
tourist; he thinks so still. He intended to be civil, and I
judged it better to be civil also."
"And of what did you talk?"
"The weather--there will be rain, he says, by tomorrow
evening--the other towns, England, myself, about you a
little, and he actually mentioned Lilia. He was perfectly
disgusting; he pretended he loved her; he offered to show me
her grave--the grave of the woman he has murdered!"
"My dear Miss Abbott, he is not a murderer. I have just
been driving that into Harriet. And when you know the
Italians as well as I do, you will realize that in all that
he said to you he was perfectly sincere. The Italians are
essentially dramatic; they look on death and love as
spectacles. I don't doubt that he persuaded himself, for
the moment, that he had behaved admirably, both as husband
and widower."
"You may be right," said Miss Abbott, impressed for the
first time. "When I tried to pave the way, so to speak--to
hint that he had not behaved as he ought--well, it was no
good at all. He couldn't or wouldn't understand."
There was something very humorous in the idea of Miss
Abbott approaching Gino, on the Rocca, in the spirit of a
district visitor.
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