But he thought better of Il Duca.
CHAPTER XXI
THE PIT
They met an hour later at luncheon, all but the Duchessa, who sulked in
her garden. Tato was bright and smiling, filled with a suppressed joy
which bubbled up in spite of the little one's effort to be dignified and
sedate. When her hand stole under the table to find and press that of
her father, Uncle John beamed upon her approvingly; for he knew what had
occurred and could sympathize with her delight.
The Duke, however, was more sombre than usual. He had defied his mother,
successfully, so far; but he feared the terrible old woman more than did
Tato, because he knew more of her history and of the bold and wicked
deeds she had perpetrated in years gone by. Only once had a proposed
victim escaped her, and that was when her own daughter Bianca had fallen
in love with an American held for ransom and spirited him away from the
valley through knowledge of the secret passage. It was well Bianca had
fled with her lover; otherwise her mother would surely have killed her.
But afterward, when the girl returned to die in the old home, all was
forgiven, and only the hatred of her foreign husband, whose cruelty had
driven her back to Sicily, remained to rankle in the old Duchessa's
wicked heart.
No one knew her evil nature better than her son.
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