Giovanni no longer doubted,
but his wife was not sure even now. Noemi! Noemi must know! Giovanni
closed the door, while Maria, interpreting her sister's silence as
confirmation, insisted: "Then it is really he, really he?"
Noemi was silent. She would perhaps have betrayed her friend's secret in
order to conspire with the Selvas for Jeanne's happiness, had she not
been deterred by a doubt of their agreeing with her, and by a sense of
wavering in her own mind. Probably, as Catholics, the Selvas would
not wish this man who had fled from the world to return to it. She, a
Protestant, could not feel thus; at least she _should_ not feel thus.
She should rather believe that God is better served out in the world and
in the married state. She did feel this, but she could not hide from
herself that should Signor Maironi marry Jeanne now, she could feel
little respect for him. At any rate it would be wiser to hide the
strange truth.
"Well, what is it you think?" said she. "That the priest who was here
last night, and who passed in front of us, after all that by-play of
yours, was really the former lover? Is he your Don Clemente? Very well
then, he is not the man.
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