"What is it?" she asked. "Let me help you. Tell me what your trouble is."
The girl raised her head, and her streaming dark eyes met Ragna's. Seeing the sympathy in the fair face bent over her, she rose and let herself be led away to a corner near the entrance where there were some chairs.
"Oh, Signorina, it is very great," sobbed the girl, "but it is nothing a young lady like you could understand."
"What is it? Tell me," said Ragna gently.
"Oh, Signorina, I can't! I should be ashamed, you would despise me. What can a young lady like you know of--"
"Come, tell me, I shall not despise you," said Ragna; she was conscious already of an odd sense of fellowship. The girl raised her head, and looked at her steadily, as though testing the sincerity of the words.
"Signorina, my lover, Zuan, he is--he is going away, to America--he no longer wishes to marry me, and--" she drew aside the shawl, showing the altered lines of her figure.
"And Signorina, my father turns me out of his house, he says I have brought disgrace on him, that no one will marry me now. I have nowhere to go. But that is nothing. I can work. It is Zuan--he doesn't love me any more, he is tired of me--" her voice trailed off into a wail. Ragna stroked her hand.
"Signorina, why should he cease to love me when I love him as much as ever? It must be another woman who has taken him from me! If I find her, I will kill her, I swear it! I will kill him too, and then I will kill myself!"
"But your child?" said Ragna, "have you thought of it?"
"The _creatura_? Poor little lamb to be wronged by its father before it is born! See you, Signorina," she turned defiantly, "it is his child, and he shall recognize it or die! No other woman shall have him!" Her eyes flashed.
"If you are patient, and wait, he may come back to you; what would you gain by killing him? They will send you to prison, and your child will be born in disgrace."
"Perhaps you are right, Signorina," returned the girl doubtfully. "But how can I wait? Where can I go? My father has turned me out of his house, and no one will give me work now. No, it is better that I make an end of it."
She rose, but Ragna caught her hand, and pulled her down.
"Carolina, Signorina, Carolina Manin di Guiseppe."