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Rh "Thank heaven, they're talking it out," she said. " I was afraid he'd come up to murder her. … But, oh, the talking's bad enough. You've no idea what an Italian family row is like!"

Teresa got some idea of what it was like as the voices went on for an hour; Egisto's like a bull's bellow; Edith's breaking in, sharp and hard as steel, gradually predominating, bearing down with a sheer nervous intensity of will, under which, at last, the male violence sank into an exhausted mumble. Nina sat the whole time with her hands over her ears and an expression of such misery on her face that Teresa went and put her arms about her.

"Don't feel so about them—I daresay it will come out all right," she urged.

"It can't come right!" cried Nina. "She will get the better of him now—she'll get her way. But she's bad—bad!"

Suddenly the door below was flung open and Egisto cried out for Nina. She sprang up and ran downstairs. Teresa heard a confused murmur, then Nina called out to her to bring some water and the smelling-salts from Edith's room. She got a glass of water, but could not find the salts. As she came out on the landing they were bringing Edith upstairs. Nina was supporting her, but after mounting a few steps Edith's tall figure seemed to collapse. She wavered back toward Egisto, who was a step below, and with