Bosio shook his head, and a long silence followed. Once or twice he
roused himself, stirred the cup of chocolate which the waiter had set
before him, and sipped a teaspoonful of it absently. The corner where
the two men sat together was quiet, but from the front of the café came
the continual clatter of plates and glasses, the echo of feet, and the
ring of voices; for it was just midday, and the place was full of its
habitual frequenters.
"If we were in church," said Bosio at last, "and if you were in a
confessional--"
He stopped, and glanced at his companion without completing the
sentence.
"You would make a confession? There are churches near," said Don
Teodoro. "I am ready. Will you come?"
Bosio hesitated.
"No," he said at last. "I could tell you nothing without betraying
others."
"Betraying! Is it a crime that you have on your conscience?" The
priest's voice was low and troubled.
"Many crimes," answered Bosio. "The crimes that must come, and that I
cannot prevent by living, nor hinder by dying."
Again there was silence during several minutes.
"You may trust me as a friend, even if, as a priest, you could not
confess all the circumstances to me," said Don Teodoro, after the long
pause. "I do not wish you to make confidences to me, unless you are
impelled to do so. But you are in that frame of mind, my dear Bosio, in
which a man will sooner or later unburden himself to some one. You might
do worse than choose me. I am your friend, I am old, and I know that I
am discreet. I am extraordinarily discreet. It may seem strange that I
should say so myself, but my own life has taught me that I am to be
trusted with secrets."
"Yes," replied Bosio. "You must have heard strange things sometimes
under the seal of confession."
"I have known of strange things." Don Teodoro's face grew sad and
thoughtful, and Bosio, seeing it, suddenly made up his mind.
He leaned far back against the painted wall for a moment, with
half-closed eyes. Then he drew nearer to his friend, so that he spoke
close to the latter's ear, though he looked down at the table before
him. His nervous fingers played with the teaspoon in the saucer of his
cup.
It was a strange confession, there in the corner of the crowded café at
midday, and those who glanced idly at the two men from a distance would
hardly have guessed that an act in a mysterious life was before their
eyes--an act which was itself but a verbal recapitulation of many
actions past, but which to the speaker had an enormous importance of its
own, and an influence on the future of all concerned.
Not much had been needed to break through the barrier of Bosio's
reticence. Walking through the streets that morning he had for a moment
even thought of telling some of his story to Taquisara. It was far
easier to tell it to the only true friend he had in the world, to one in
whom he had confided as a boy and had trusted as a young man. He told
almost all. He confessed that his love of many years had been his
brother's wife, and though he spoke no word of her love for him, the old
priest knew the evil truth from the man's tone and look. For the rest he
spared neither Matilde nor any one else, but told Don Teodoro all the
truth, and all his anxious fears for Veronica's safety, if he should not
marry her, with all his horror of his own shame if he should yield to
the pressure brought upon him.
Don Teodoro's expression changed more than once while he listened, but
he never turned his head nor moved in his seat.
"You see what I am," said Bosio, at last. "You see what my people are.
Indeed, I need a confessor, if one could save my soul; but I need a
friend even more, for through me that poor girl is in danger of her
life. That is her choice--to die or to be my wife. Mine is, to see her
murdered or to do an unutterably shameful thing--or to see the woman I
love driven out of the world with infamy for the crimes she has not
committed, and the fear of that disgrace is making her mad. It is for
her, and for Veronica! What do I care about myself? What have I left to
care for? What I have done, I have done. I am not good, I am not
religious, I am perhaps a worse sinner than most men, and a poorer
believer than many. But I will not be the instrument of these deeds--and
yet, if I refuse--there is death, or shame, or both, to those I love! At
least I have spoken, and you will not betray me. It has been a relief, a
moment's respite from torture. I thank you for it, my friend, and I wish
I could repay you. You cannot give me advice, for I have twisted and
turned it all in fifty ways, and there is no escape. You cannot help me,
for no one can. But you have done me some little momentary good, just by
sitting there and hearing my story. Beyond that there is nothing to be
done."
The wretched man closed his eyes, and again leaned back against the
bright red wall, which threw his white face and dark-ringed eyes into
strong and painful relief. Don Teodoro was silent, bending his mind upon
the hideous problem. Bosio misunderstood him and spoke again without
moving.
"I know," he said. "You need not speak. I know by heart all the
reproaches I deserve, and I know that no human being, much less a holy
man like yourself, could possibly feel anything but horror at all
this--"
"I am very far from being a holy man," interrupted the priest. "If I
feel horror, it is for what has been, and may be, but not for you.
Bosio--" he hesitated a moment. "Will you come with me to Muro, and
leave all this?" he asked suddenly. "Will you come out of the world for
a while? No--I am not proposing to you to make a religious retreat. I
wish I could. I know the world, and you, and your people, for I lived
long among you, and I know that one cannot change one's soul, as one
changes one's coat--nor enter upon a retreat as one springs into the sea
for a bath in hot weather. What you have made yourself, you are. Heaven
itself would need time to unmake you. I speak just as one man to
another. Come with me to the mountains for a week, a month--as long as
you will. It is dreary and cold, and you will have to eat what you can
get; but you will have peace, for nobody will come up there to disturb
you. Meanwhile, something may happen. You are overwrought by all you
have seen and heard and felt. Whatever the countess may have said,
Donna Veronica is quite safe. My dear Bosio, people in your rank of
life do not murder one another for money nowadays. It is laughable, the
mere idea of it--"
"Laughable!" Bosio turned and looked at him. "If you had seen her eyes,
you would find it hard to laugh, I think. Such things happen rarely,
perhaps, but they happen sometimes."
Don Teodoro was not persuaded. He thought that Bosio, in his excited
state, very much overestimated the danger.
"At all events," he said, "nothing will happen, so long as there is the
possibility that you may marry her. If you come with me, you will at
least have time to think before acting. But here, you may be forced to
act before you have been able to think."
But Bosio shook his head slowly.
"There are difficulties which can be helped by putting them off," he
answered. "This is not one. You forget that in just three weeks my
brother will be ruined--absolutely ruined--if he cannot pay. If I stayed
that time with you, I should come back to find him a beggar--or obliged
to throw himself upon Veronica's mercy and charity for his daily bread
and for a roof to cover him."
"There is one other way," said the priest, thoughtfully. "There is one
thing left for you to do, if you have courage to do it. And you know
better than I what chance there would be of success. It is what I
should do myself. It is a heroic remedy, but it may save everything
yet."
Bosio's eyes turned anxiously to his friend, by way of question.
"Find Veronica alone," said Don Teodoro. "Take all rights into your own
hands and tell her everything, just as you have told me. You know her
well. If she is kind-hearted, as I think she is, she will pay your
brother's debts, take over the estates herself, since it is time, and
manage that Cardinal Campodonico shall never suspect that there has been
anything wrong with the administration. If she is not so charitable as
to do that of her own free will, why then, since you believe it, tell
her that she must do it to save her life. It is most unlikely that she
will refuse and take refuge with the cardinal in order to bring public
disgrace upon her father's sister. And even that, horrible as it seems
to you--if it must be, it will be, and it will not be your fault--"
"But Matilde--" Bosio began in troubled tones. "And yet, perhaps, it is
possible. Veronica would not be so cruel as to ruin them--the money is
nothing to her. And, after all, she will hardly feel the loss out of her
immense fortune. Yes--" his face brightened slowly with the rays of
hope. "Yes--it may be possible, after all. I had thought of going to
her, but not of telling her the whole truth. It did not seem as though
I could, until I had heard myself tell it to you. It will be hard, but
it seems possible, and it will save her--and then--"
His face changed again, as he broke off in the sentence, and his
melancholy eyes turned slowly to his friend.
"And then," said Don Teodoro, "perhaps you will go back with me to Muro,
and rest and forget it all."
"Yes," answered Bosio, sadly and dreamily, "perhaps I shall go to Muro
with you. I wonder," he continued, after a short pause, "that you should
want such a man as I am in your priest's house there."
"Oh! I am glad of a little society when I can get it, and I have much to
show you which might interest you. I have worked perpetually for many
years, since we used to talk about my history of the Church."
He checked himself. In spite of all he had just heard, and the real
distress and sympathy he had felt for Bosio, the one of his dominant
passions which was uppermost just then had almost made him forget
everything, and launch into an account of his work and studies. Men who,
intellectually, are deeply engrossed in one matter, and who, socially,
have long lived very lonely lives, are not generally able to lose
themselves in sympathy for others. As Bosio was not exactly an object
for Don Teodoro's charity, he was in some danger of being made a
listener for the outpouring of the priest's tremendous intellectual
enthusiasm. But the latter checked himself. The things he had heard were
indeed of a nature not so easily forgotten. He went back to them at
once.
"My dear Bosio," he began again, "do not put yourself down as the worst
of men. It is just as bad to go too far in one direction as in the
other. There is undoubtedly, in theory, the man in the world, at any
given moment, who must be a little worse than any other living man; but
though he might be our next-door neighbour, we have no means whatever of
knowing that he is the greatest sinner alive, because we do not know all
about all existing sinners. Consequently, and for the same reason, no
man has any right to assume that he is worst of men. And as far as that
goes, many men have done worse things, even in the religious view, than
you have done, and very much worse things, in the opinion of society.
You are not responsible for all that the others have done. You are only
responsible in the immediate future for your share of duty, in doing the
wisest and best thing which may present itself. And if you can induce
Donna Veronica to forgive your brother and your brother's wife, by
telling her the truth without prevarication, you will have done
something to atone for the past evil which, you cannot undo. I am not
preaching to you, my dear friend. Pray look upon me as a man and not as
a priest. Indeed, I would rather that you should never think of me as a
priest at all. If you need spiritual help, there are many better men
than I, who can give it to you. But as a man and a friend, come to me if
you will. You are to me also a man and a friend, and not a penitent."
He finished speaking, took off his spectacles, and rested his head
against the wall behind him, as Bosio had done, and the younger man
glanced sideways at his friend's extraordinary profile. Its fantastic
outline had a moral effect upon him; for it recalled, as nothing else
could, the early days of his life before he had been what he now was,
when he had known what hope meant, and had understood aspirations in
others which had no meaning for him now. He was very grateful, too, for
Don Teodoro's words, which certainly comforted him in a way he had not
expected.
"Thank you," he said, "I will think of it. I think I shall take your
advice and speak to Veronica. She can save us all, if she will."
"Yes," said Don Teodoro. "She can save you all--and she will."
Then they sat a long time in silence in their corner, and the priest's
mind wandered occasionally to the thought of his manuscript, and of the
many points he intended to discuss with his friend Don Matteo, a man as
learned as himself, but indolent instead of active, one of those
passive, living treasuries of thought upon which the active worker
fastens greedily when he has a chance, to extract all the riches he can
in the shortest possible time, in any shape, to carry the gold away with
him to his workshop and fashion it to his wish.
And Bosio, whose intelligence was essentially dramatic and given to
throwing future interviews into an imaginary dramatic shape, thought
over and over what he would say to Veronica and what she might be
expected to say to him. But he was terribly exhausted and harassed, and
by degrees as the stimulant of recent comfort lost its cheering warmth
within him, he silently grew despondent again within himself, and his
dramatic fancies of fear became near and tragic realities. He thought he
could hear the clear, bell-like voice of the somnambulist telling him
that he should be forced to marry Veronica.
At last, realizing that he was probably detaining Don Teodoro, he roused
himself, and the two went out together into the broad light of the
Piazza San Ferdinando.
"I will go home," Bosio said. "I will think of it all. At this time I
can easily be alone with Veronica."
His voice sounded as though he were speaking to himself, and his head
was bent, so that he stooped from the neck as Don Teodoro did. But the
latter, as he walked, his silver-rimmed spectacles balanced on his great
nose, thrust his bent head more forward. Or rather, it was as though his
head moved first in the direction he meant to follow, while his thin
legs had difficulty in keeping up with it.
Bosio was willing to put off the moment of going home as long as
possible, and he accompanied his friend to the door of Don Matteo's
lodging, which was in a clean, quiet, sunlit street, behind the
Piazza--in one of those oases of light and cleanliness upon which one
sometimes comes in the heart of Naples. The little green door was
reached by a couple of steps up from the level of the street. Don
Teodoro had a key and stood on the upper step, holding it in his hand
and blinking in the warm sunshine.
"You know this house," he said. "You have been to see me here once or
twice. If you want me, you can always send for me in the afternoon, for
I only go out in the morning. But I will come and see you. When?
To-morrow, before noon?"
"Yes," Bosio answered. "By to-morrow at midday something will be
decided."
They shook hands and parted, Bosio turning eastward in the direction of
his home. The priest absently tried to insert the key in the lock of the
door, while his eyes followed his friend to the corner of the street.
Then, as Bosio's still graceful figure disappeared, he turned from the
keyhole with a sigh, and let himself in.
Bosio walked rapidly at first, and then more slowly as he came nearer to
the old quarter in which the Palazzo Macomer was situated. As with all
men of such character, his irresolution increased just when he fancied
that he was about to do something decisive. He would not have hesitated
in the same way, if he had been called upon to face a physical danger;
for though he was certainly no hero, he was by no means a physical
coward, and in a quarrel he would have stood up bravely enough to face
his antagonist. But this was very different. He had been ruled by
Matilde Macomer through many years, and when he thought of meeting her
he had a deadly presentiment of assured defeat. She would extract from
him something more than the silent assent which he had been forced into
giving on the previous evening, and she could not let him go till he
promised to marry Veronica. He walked more slowly, as he felt the fear
and uncertainty twisting his scant courage from his heart.
Then he was ashamed of himself, and in a sudden attempt to be brave he
hailed a passing cab and drove rapidly to the Palazzo Macomer. He asked
for Veronica and was told that she was in her room. He did not wish to
send her a message. Gregorio had gone out immediately after the midday
breakfast. Bosio was glad of that. He had not seen his brother since the
previous evening, and he did not wish to see him alone. There were
monstrous wrongs on both sides, and it was better to pretend mutual
ignorance, and keep up the ghastly farce, pretending that nothing was
the matter. The very smallest incautious word would crack the swaying
bubble that was blown to bursting with hell's breath.
Bosio had entered the main apartments in order to inquire for Veronica,
had passed through the long outer hall with its red walls, its matted
floor and its great table covered with green baize, to the antechamber
within, where, with some ostentation, as Bosio had always thought,
Gregorio had hung up the escutcheon with the quartered arms of Macomer
and Serra, flanked by half a dozen big old family portraits on either
side, opposite the three windows. He had waited there until the footman
returned after looking for Veronica in the drawing-room, and when he
heard that she was not there, he turned to reach the staircase again and
go up to his own bachelor's quarters, for he feared to meet Matilde and
hoped to put off seeing her until dinner-time, when he might so
manoeuvre as not to be left alone with her.
But the footman had hardly delivered his answer, and Bosio was in the
act of turning, when one of the two masked doors under the pictures
opened suddenly, and Matilde spoke into the room, calling him by name.
He turned pale and stopped short, as though a cold hand had taken him by
the throat. The footman went out to the hall, as Bosio met Matilde's
eyes.
"Come," she said briefly, "I want to speak to you."
He obeyed silently, and followed her through the narrow door and through
a passage beyond, to her own morning-room. Matilde shut the door. The
afternoon sun streamed in through two high windows, filling every corner
with light and turning the crimson carpet blood red, where Matilde
stood, all round her feet and the folds of her loose dark gown, so that
she seemed to rise out of a pool of vivid colour, a dark, strong figure
with the brightness all behind her and the gleam of her eyes just
lightening in the shadow of her face.
"Why did you go out without seeing me this morning?" she asked in a hard
tone. "And why did Taquisara come to see you early? You scarcely know
him--"
"I certainly did not send for him," said Bosio, uneasily.
"He did not come for nothing," retorted Matilde. "He is no friend of
yours. He must have come for some particular reason."
Bosio said nothing, but turned from her and moved towards a table
covered with books. In an objectless way he opened a volume and looked
at the title page. Matilde followed him with her eyes.
"Well?" she said presently, "I am waiting. What did Taquisara have to
say? He is Gianluca's friend--he came with a message. That is clear.
What did he say? I am waiting to hear."
"He came because he chose to come," answered Bosio, still looking at the
title page of the book. "Gianluca did not send him. He wished to know
whether it were true that I was to marry Veronica."
"I thought so. And what did you answer? Of course you told him that it
was quite settled."
"We had a long conversation--I do not remember all that we said--"
"You do not remember whether you told him that you were to marry
Veronica or not?" Matilde laughed angrily and came forward.
"Let that book alone!" she said imperiously. "Look at me--so--now tell
me the truth!"
She laid her hand upon his arm, and not gently, and she made him turn to
her. Bosio felt that shock of shame which smites a man in the back, as
it were, when a woman is too strong for him and orders him brutally to
do her will.
"I told him the truth," he answered, and his pale cheeks reddened with
futile anger.
"The truth!" Matilde's face darkened. "What? What did you tell him?"
Bosio was weakly glad to have frightened her a little.
"The truth," he said, trying to assume a certain indifference. "Just
that. I let him understand that nothing is definitely settled yet, and
that there is no contract--"
Matilde was silent, and her eyes seemed to draw nearer together, while
the smooth red lips curled scornfully.
"Oh, what a coward you are!" she cried in a low voice, in deep disgust,
and as she spoke she dropped his arm in contempt, though she still held
his face with her angry gaze.
"You have no right to call me a coward," answered Bosio, defending his
manhood. "I told you that I could not do it. The man put it in such a
way that I had to give him a definite answer. For your sake I would not
deny the engagement altogether--"
"For my sake!" exclaimed Matilde. "Do not use such phrases to me. They
mean nothing. For some wretched quibble of your miserable conscience--as
you still have the assumption to call it--you will ruin us in another
day."
"Yes, I still have some conscience," replied Bosio, trying to be bold
under her scornful eyes. "I would not let Taquisara think that you and
Gregorio had lied, and I would not lie myself--"
"You are reforming, then? You choose the moment well!"
"I have told you what passed between Taquisara and me," said Bosio.
"That was what you wished to know. I will judge of myself whether I did
right or not."
He turned from her and walked away, towards the door.
"Well?" she said, not moving, for she knew that her voice would stop
him.
"Is there anything else?" he asked, turning again and standing still.
"There is much more. Come back! Sit down and talk to me like a sensible
being. There is much to be said. The matter is all but settled in spite
of the account which Taquisara frightened you into giving him. I like
that man, he is so brave! He is not at all like you."
"If you wish me to stay longer, you must not insult me again," said
Bosio, not yet seating himself, but resting his hands on the back of a
chair as he stood. "You know very well that I am no more a coward, if it
comes to fighting men, than others are. One need not be cowardly to
dread doing such a thing as you are trying to force me to."
"It does not seem such a very terrible thing," said Matilde, her tone
suddenly changing and growing thoughtful. "It really does not seem to me
such a dreadful thing that you should be Veronica's husband. Of course
I do not speak of the material advantages. You were always an idealist,
Bosio--you do not care for those things, and I daresay that when you are
married you will not even care to take her titles, nor to spend much of
her money. I know well enough what passes in your mind. Sit down. Let us
talk about it. We cannot afford to quarrel, you and I, can we? I am
sorry I spoke as I did--and I never meant that you were cowardly in the
ordinary sense. I was angry about Taquisara. What right had he to come
here, to pry into our affairs? I should think you would have resented
it, too."
"I did," said Bosio, somewhat sullenly. "But I could not turn him out,
nor get into a quarrel with him. It would have made a useless scandal
and would have set every one talking."
"Certainly," assented Matilde. "Perhaps you did right, after all--at
least, you thought you did. I am sure of that. I do not know why I was
so angry at you. I am unstrung, and nervous, I suppose. Did I say very
dreadful things to you, dear? I do not know what I said--"
"You called me a coward several times," replied Bosio, thinking to show
a little strength by relenting slowly.
"Oh! but I did not mean it!" cried the countess. "Bosio, forgive me. I
did not mean to say such things--indeed, I did not. But do you wonder
that I am nervous? Say that you forgive me--"
"Of course I forgive you," answered Bosio, raising his eyebrows rather
wearily. "I know that you are under a terrible strain--but you say
things sometimes which are unjust and hard. I know what all this means
to us both--but there must be some other way."
Matilde shook her head mournfully, as Bosio sat down beside her, already
sinking back to his long-learned docility.
"There is no other way," she said. "There is certainly none, that is
sure. I have thought it all over, as one thinks of everything when
everything is in danger. The only other course is to throw ourselves
upon Veronica's mercy--"
"Well? Why not?" asked Bosio, eagerly, as Don Teodoro's advice gained
instant plausibility again. "She is kind, she is charitable, she will
forgive everything and save you--"
"The shame of it, Bosio! Of confessing it all--and she may refuse.
Veronica is not all kindness and charity. She is a Serra, as I am, and
though she is a mere girl, if she takes it into her head to be hard and
unforgiving, there would be no power on earth that could move her. She
is not so unlike me, Bosio. You may think so because she is so unlike me
in looks. She has the type of her father, poor Tommaso. But we Serra
are all Serra--there is not much difference. No--do not interrupt me,
dear. And as for your marriage, there is much to be said for it. It is
time that you were married, you know. You and I have lived our lives,
and we are not what we were. I shall always be fond of you--we shall
always be more than friends--but always less than what we have been. It
must have come sooner or later, Bosio, and it may as well come now. You
know--we cannot be always young. And as for me, if I am not already old,
I soon shall be."
The woman who had held him so long knew how to tempt him, sacrificing
everything in the desperate straits to which she was reduced. Though he
had loved her well, and sinfully, but truly, for so many years, his love
had sometimes seemed an unbearable thraldom, to escape from which he
would have given his heart piecemeal, though he should lose all the
happiness life held for him, for the sake of a momentary freedom.
Possibly, too, she knew that he never longed for that freedom so much as
when she had just been most violent and despotic. She was prepared for
the feeble dissent with which he answered her suggestion of separation.
He would be the more easily persuaded to yield and marry Veronica.
"As for your being old," he said, "it is absurd. It is I who have grown
old of late. But our being friends--" he paused thoughtfully.
"A man is never too old to marry," answered Matilde. "It is only women
who grow too old to be loved. You will begin your life all over again
with Veronica. You and she will go away together--you can live in Rome,
when you are tired of Paris. It will be better. You and I will see each
other seldom at first. By and by it will be so easy for us to be good
friends after we have been separated some time."
"Friends?" Bosio spoke the one word again, with a sad and dreamy
intonation.
"I asked Veronica this morning," continued Matilde, not heeding him, and
beginning to speak more rapidly. "You have no idea how very fond she is
of you. When I spoke of the marriage, she seemed to think it the most
natural thing in the world. She found arguments for it herself."
"She?"
"Yes. She said--what I have said to you--that there was no man whom she
knew so well and liked so much as you, that of course she had never
thought of marrying you, nor, indeed, of being married at all, but that,
at the same time, she should think that you would make a very good
husband. She wished to think of it--that is as much as to say that she
will not even make any serious objections. You have no idea how young
girls feel about marriage, Bosio. How should you? You cannot comprehend
the horror a girl like Veronica feels of a stranger, of a man like
Gianluca, even, whom she has met half a dozen times and talked with. It
seems so dreadful to think of spending a lifetime with a man about whom
she knows nothing, or next to nothing. And yet it is the custom, and
most of them accept it and are happy. But the idea of marrying some one
with whom she is really intimate, whom she really likes, who really
understands her, places marriage in a new light for a young girl.
Without knowing it, Veronica is half in love with you. It is no wonder
that she likes the thought of being your wife--apart from the fact that
you are a very desirable husband."
"I cannot believe that," said Bosio.
"That you are desirable as a husband? My dear Bosio, do not pretend to
be so absurdly modest! Any woman would be glad to marry you. But for me,
you could have made the best match in Naples years ago--"
"Not even years ago. Much less now. But that was not what I meant. I
cannot believe that Veronica is really inclined to marry me. It seems to
me that she might be my daughter--"
"If you had been married at fifteen," suggested Matilde, laughing
softly. "Because you feel tired and harassed to-day, you feel a hundred
years old. It is no compliment to me to say so, for I am even a little
older than you, I think. And you--you are young, you are handsome, you
are talented, you have the manners that women love--"
"It is not many minutes since you were saying that we were both growing
old--"
"No, no! I said that we could not always be young. That is very
different. And that we have lived our lives--our lives so long as they
can be lived together--that is what I meant. You are young! How many men
marry at fifty! And you are not forty yet. You have ten years of youth
before you. That is not the question. So far as that is concerned, say
that you are old to-night, at dinner, and you shall see how Veronica
will laugh at you! But that you and I should part, Bosio--and yet, it is
far better, if you have the courage."
"Have you?" he asked sadly.
"Yes--I have, for your sake, since I see how you look at this. And you
are right. I know you are, though I am only a woman, and cannot have a
man's ideas about honour. For my own part--well, I am a woman, and I
have loved you long. But you are the one to be thought of. You shall be
free, as though I had never lived. You shall be able to say to yourself
that in marrying Veronica you are not doing anything in the least
dishonourable. I shall not exist for you. I shall not feel that I have
the right to think of you and for you as I always have. I shall never
ask you to do anything for me, lest you should feel that I were
asserting some claim to you, as though you were still mine. It will be
hard at first. But I can do it, and I will do it, in order that your
conscience may be free. You shall marry her, as though you had never
known me, and hereafter I will always be the same. Only--" She fixed her
eyes upon him with a look which, whether genuine or assumed, was fierce
and tender--
"Only--if you are not true to her, Bosio--if you leave her and go after
some other woman--then I will turn upon you!"
Bosio met her glance with a look of something like astonishment,
wondering how in a few sentences she had got herself into a position to
threaten him with vengeance if he were unfaithful to Veronica.
"We will not speak of that," she exclaimed before he said anything in
answer or protest. "We have harder things to do than to imagine evil in
the future. Since we are decided--since it is to be the end--let it be
now, quickly! You shall not have it on your mind that you belong to me
in any way, from now. No--you are right--you must feel free. You must
feel free, besides really being free. You must feel, when you speak to
Veronica to-night or to-morrow, as she expects you to speak, that all
our life together is utterly past and swept away, and that I only exist
henceforth as a relative--as--as your wife's aunt, Bosio!"
She laughed, half-bitterly, half-nervously, at the idea, and turning
away her face she held out her hand to him.
He took it, and held it, pressing it between both his own.
"Do you mean this, Matilde?" he asked in a low voice.
"Yes, I mean it," she answered, speaking away from him with averted
face.
He could not see, but she was biting her lip till it almost bled. In her
own strange way she loved him with all her evil nature, and if she were
breaking with him now, it was to save herself from something worse than
death. It was the hardest thing she had ever done. He hesitated: there
was the mean prompting of the spirit, to take her at her word and to set
himself free, since she offered him freedom, caring not whether she
might repent to-morrow; and there was the instinct of fidelity which in
so much dishonour had remained with him through so many years.
"Besides," she said hoarsely, "I do not love you any more. I would not
keep you longer, if I could. Oh--we shall be friends! But the other--no!
Good bye, Bosio--good bye."
Something moved him, as she had not meant that anything should.
"I do not believe you," he said. "You love me still--I will not leave
you!"
"No, no! I do not--but if you still care at all, save me. Say good bye,
but do the rest also. You are free now. You are an honourable man again.
Bosio, look at my hair. You used to love it. Would you have it cut off
and cropped by the convict's shears? My hands that you are
holding--dear--would you love them galled by the irons, riveted upon
them for years? Save me, Bosio! You are free now--save me, for the dear
sake of all that has been!"
Still she turned her face away, and as Bosio saw the waving richness of
her brown hair and heard her words, he felt a desperate thrust of pain
in his heart. It was all so fearfully true and possible.
"But do not say that you do not love me," he pleaded, in low tones,
bending to her ear.
There was a moment's silence, and he thought he saw a convulsive
movement of her throat--he guessed it rather than saw it.
"It is true!" she cried, with an effort, drawing her hands from him and
turning her pale face fiercely. "If I loved you still, do you think I
would give you to Veronica Serra, or to any living woman? Was that the
way I loved you? Was that how you loved me?"
"Ah no! But now--"
She would not let him speak.
"Do you think that if I loved you, as I have loved you--as I did once--I
should be so ready to give you up? Do you know me so little? Do you
think that I have no pride?" asked Matilde Macomer, holding him at arm's
length from her with her strong hands and throwing back her head, while
the lids half veiled her eyes, and her face grew paler still.
The words that were so strange, spoken by such a woman, fell from her
lips with force and earnest conviction, whether she truly believed that
they had meaning for her, or not. Then her voice changed and softened
again.
"But your friend--yes, always, as you must be mine--that and nothing
more. We have said good bye to all the rest--now go, for I would rather
be alone for a little while. Go, Bosio--please go!"
"As you will," he answered.
Then he kissed her hand and looked into her face for a moment, as though
expecting that she should speak again. But she only shook her head, and
her hand gave his no pressure. He kissed it again. There were tears in
his eyes when he left the room.