Don Ferrante would have liked to know if the advocate and Don Matteo and all the others came only to reproach him because he wished to send Cavaliere Palmeri away.
The blood began to throb in his temples. The room swam now and then before his eyes. People came in continually and asked: “Have you ever heard such a terrible ringing?” But one never came and asked, and that was Donna Micaela. She could not come when she felt no fear. She was merely delighted and proud that the passion which was to fill her whole life had come. “My life is to be great and glorious,” she said. And she was appalled that till now she had been only a child.
She would travel with the post-carriage that went by Diamante at ten o’clock at night. Towards four, she thought, she must tell her father everything, and begin his packing.
But that did not seem hard to her. Her father would soon come to her in Argentina. She would beg him to be patient for a few months, until they could have a home to offer him. And she was sure that he would be glad to have her leave Don Ferrante.
She moved in a delicious trance. Everything that had seemed dreadful appeared so no longer. There was no shame, no danger; no, none at all.
She only longed to hear the rattling of the post-carriage.
Then she heard many voices on the stairs leading from the court-yard to the second floor. She heard a multitude of heavy feet tramping. She saw people passing through the open portico that ran round the court-yard, and through which one had to go to come into the rooms. She saw that they were carrying something heavy between them, but she could not see what it was, because there was such a crowd.
The pale-faced advocate walked before the others. He came and said to her that Don Ferrante had wished to drive Torino out of his shop; Torino had cut him with his knife. It was nothing dangerous. He was already bandaged and would be well in a fortnight.
Don Ferrante was carried in, and his eyes wandered about the room, not in search of Donna Micaela, but of Cavaliere Palmeri. When he saw him, he let his wife know without a word, only by a few gestures, that her father never would need to leave his house; never, never.
Then she pressed her hands against her eyes. What, what! her father need not go? She was saved. A miracle had come to pass to help her!