It was still long before noon when Signor Oriole and his charge arrived
in London. Some little conversation they had had on the journey on the
most prosaic, matter-of-fact details, as to where they should go, and
when, and how. They had decided upon travelling by train to Naples, and
thence taking the steamer to Catania, a little to the north of which
lay the small estate which had come to Signor Giuseppe. They were to
stay in London for the rest of the day, and for that night. It was
with some little difficulty that he persuaded Fulvia to do this; her
wide-open eyes betrayed no look of drowsiness, and he at least could
see the expression of suspense and restrained excitement on her face.
She had told him nothing of what had finally driven her to him, and
made her so firmly bent on escaping from her husband’s house, from West
Wall--yea, even from England. When he suggested the rest in London a
blank look came over her face.
‘Could we not take the tidal train to Calais to-night?’ she asked
imploringly.
‘We certainly could, but I do not wish either you or myself to break
down on the journey,’ he said; ‘and, mia cara, if you will let me sleep
for a few hours, I am at your service.’
‘Oh, forgive me, padre mio! Do not let us speak of it again. We will
stay here all night and leave to-morrow morning.’
Thus it was arranged. Signor Giuseppe employed part of the day in
certain business transactions with his bankers, and in laying in
a stock of some travelling requisites whose very existence Fulvia
appeared to have forgotten. She went with him everywhere; she seemed
nervous and afraid to be left alone in the hotel, and told him she
could not possibly sleep, even if she tried to do so. He let her have
her way, and the long day wore on, and he insisted upon her going to
bed early and trying to sleep.
Their rooms were next door to one another, and he promised that when
she was in bed he would go and say good-night to her. She presently
called him through the door which joined the rooms. He wondered whether
she would tell him now, as he went into the room and saw her lying
still and white-looking, still with those eyes so painfully wide open.
But Fulvia did not speak on that subject. She held his hand for awhile,
as he sat beside her bed, and looked at him, and said:
‘I don’t think I shall go to sleep. I wish I had gone to a doctor and
asked for a sleeping-draught. Promise not to shut that door, will you?’
‘Certainly, darling. It shall be open all night,’ he assured her, and
in a few minutes, to his profound relief, he saw the eyelids, heavy and
purple with grief and long vigil, fall. Once or twice she raised them
again. Once she pressed his hand, and carried it to her lips. Then the
clasp of her fingers upon his gradually relaxed. By-and-by he saw that
Fulvia slept--a natural sleep.
‘Thank God!’ he said to himself. ‘I should have been afraid to leave
London if I had known she had had no rest.’
Still without any explanation having been made, they left London on
the following morning. Now that she had rested, and looked strong and
steady, if pale and unspeakably sad, he was ready to agree to her
request that they should only break the journey once before getting
to Naples--at Milan. She never swerved from this resolution, and they
were, as it seemed, very soon far away from England, had traversed
France, had travelled through the snows of Switzerland, all crowded
with tourists of every description, had at last reached the southern
side of the Alps, and heard their own tongue again. As the heat grew
greater, the number of English and American excursionists diminished.
The burning plain of Lombardy was behind them, and on a still,
breathless, sultry evening they entered the great desolate space of
the Milan station, coldly orderly under a glare of electric light.
* * * * *
It was after they had dined that evening, and had left the coffee-room
and were seated in Fulvia’s room, with windows open to let in any stray
breath of air which might be wandering about, that she said to him
deliberately:
‘Padre mio, I am going to tell you about it. I could not speak before,
and I do not wish to speak now, but still less do I wish to have to
speak after we have got home. Let us leave all this behind us, and
begin everything afresh.’
‘Yes, child, it will be much the best if you can tell me about it now,’
‘It was thus, then. You know the kind of life which for five years I
had led and had made no sign--no outward sign, that is. I thought I
was so strong. I began to pride myself upon it, and to feel a brutal
gladness in it, as if I were above and outside the world of other
people and might despise them. I did despise a great many of them,
women especially, whom I used to hear loudly mourning and lamenting
because they had not got everything they wanted, not because they were
like me, without anything I wanted, and forced to live a life I hated.
I used to wonder how they would conduct themselves if they were really
tried. I believed that I had been so tried that there was nothing in
the world to move me, or tempt me, or make me waver from the path on
which I was walking. Then----’
‘Then Riemann came and made love to you,’ he interrupted her. ‘Well?’
‘No, he did not come and make love to me. If he had done that at once,
and had really begun to make love to me, as so many others had tried
to do, I should have smiled, as I always did, and brushed him away at
once, as such creatures always can be brushed away by the women who
do not want them. But it all grew so gradually that I did not know
what was coming. I really was blind for a long time. I swear to you
that until he came to West Wall, quite unexpectedly, he had never
spoken a word of love to me. There was something--something deep down
in my heart. I thought it was gratitude to him for his kindness, his
services, his perfect delicacy during a very miserable illness of my
husband’s when we were on the Riviera, before we came to England in the
early spring.
‘I should have loved him, I think, and should have confessed it to
myself, if he had never said anything, just because it would have been
much more respectful and chivalrous than the conduct of those other
creatures who think a miserable woman can cure her misery, and wishes
to do so, in their society.... But that did not last long. I don’t
know how it came about in the end, only I found that he did love me,
though he had been so long without saying anything about it. I wasn’t
shocked--somehow, I was not even surprised, but the horror of it was
that, instead of being utterly contemptuous, as I always had been
before, I was glad: heaven seemed opened to me.
‘It went on--of course it was easy for it to go on, after it had once
begun; and insensibly I began to think, not that it was impossible,
but to ask myself why there should be anything wrong in it--why I
should not have done with all that--and go away with him, as he
wanted me to, and travel with him, and share his life, and know some
happiness, and feel what it is to live, before I should have grown
too old to care about anything. What is the use of telling lies about
such things? Besides, I never could tell lies, either to myself or
to anyone else. I knew that it was impossible to be more unhappy and
dissatisfied and hungry for everything I could not get than I was then,
living an exemplary life, doing my duty and earning the respect of all
who knew me. What was their respect to me? I am sure I did not care
anything about it. As for resignation, that is utterly unnatural, and
even wrong, for anyone in my position. But I need not tell you all I
thought. It would take hours, and do no good, and not explain anything,
after all. The more I argued with myself, the more convinced I grew
that there would be nothing wrong in reversing the picture, and trying
what going away and leaving my duty undone might bring for me.
‘Then he became ill--you know. I had borne a great many of these
illnesses before. I don’t know that this was any worse than the others
had been, or any different. It was much the same as usual, I believe.
It was I who was changed, and to whom everything which had so far got
to seem deadly indifferent, beneath the trouble of noticing, now seemed
like stabs, like stings, like mortal insults and wounds--intolerable
tortures which no one was called upon to endure, who could escape from
them. I quite made up my mind. I was perfectly reckless. I resolved to
do it. I had to put off a promised meeting with Hans from the morning
of that day--you know which--till the evening. I told him to be at the
pond after nine. I did not know what would happen before then. The
doctor came--you know, the man from London. I knew what he would say.
‘I did not know what he would do, whether he would stay all night at
the Hall, or go to Mr. Brownrigg’s, or go home again. I had ordered a
room to be got ready for him, in case he should stay. He decided in the
end to dine with me and Mr. Brownrigg, whom I invited to remain, and to
stay all night at Mr. Brownrigg’s. There was nothing interesting at the
Hall, as he soon saw. They saw my husband, and had a consultation, and
then called me, and went through all that solemn farce again which they
always play. He was very ill, but they did not think him in immediate
danger--the chief thing was to keep his mind tranquil, and let him
feel as little depressed as possible--amuse him, in short, as well as
might be! Padre mio, I ask you, what did I, what could I, care whether
he were tranquil or agitated, cheerful or depressed? I said nothing to
them, of course. They knew all about it.
‘They cast down their eyes as they spoke, and did not look at each
other, nor very much at me. I said yes and no, and felt such an immense
ennui--indescribable. Then we dined together. They knew all about the
skeleton belonging to me, which was not even in a cupboard, but quite
visible, in a room only a few doors away; but we talked and laughed.
Is there any moment in our lives in which we cannot talk and laugh?
Sir Simon Sykes is quite witty; he told us some most laughable stories
about patients and doctors in London, at which even I was amused, and
which made Mr. Brownrigg cry, “Capital! capital!” and laugh till the
tears ran down his cheeks. Dinner lasted rather a long time. I intended
to go to him before I went away for ever. At last they had gone away,
and then I turned into his room, to give the usual look round, so as
to get it done with, without seeming remarkable. It was nearly ten
o’clock. “In a few minutes,” I thought, “all will be settled, and I can
go.”
‘In his room I found the nurse, to whom I had had almost to go on my
knees a few days before to prevail upon her to stay. She had moved as
far away from him as she could, and was sitting, where he could see
her, with her fingers in her ears, looking sullen and obstinate. She
had often complained, but I had never seen her look like that before.
As soon as I came in, she got up, and said:
‘“Mrs. Marchmont, I am sorry to inconvenience you, but I have to tell
you that I cannot remain any longer to nurse Mr. Marchmont. I don’t
know what he is or where he comes from, but though I have nursed all
kinds of men of the roughest sort--navvies, and coal-heavers, and
drunkards, and as bad as bad can be, in the hospitals, I never in all
my time have heard such words as he has been pouring out upon me for
the last hour. I leave to-morrow. I shall explain to my matron, and if
she dismisses me I can’t help it. I will not stay here!”
‘Of course, there was only one thing that I could say to her. I knew
she spoke the truth; I could not be angry with her. I believe I spoke
with a smile, for the thought in my heart was, “Then we are both going
away. How happy we are!” I said, “I am very sorry you have had such
an unpleasant experience. I do not ask you to remain. You can go.
Good-night.” She looked at me for a moment, and then went away. He had
not spoken. As soon as she had gone, and the door was shut, he turned
to me and asked where I had been all that time. With the doctors, I
told him. They had both gone.
‘“Ah! and have you decided on a plan for my destruction?” he asked me,
with the sort of laugh that he had sometimes.
‘“I am sorry to say that, when we did speak of you, the only thing
that was discussed was the best means for prolonging your life,” I
replied. I had never felt like that before; I had never felt him to be
so wicked, nor myself so wronged, as I did at that moment. In the next
everything was changed.
‘“You hate me--me, who have done everything for you. You wish me dead.
And I married you when no one else would have married you. I raised
you from beggary--practical beggary--to this!” I heard what he said,
and, though it is so monstrous, I knew in an instant that he believed
what he said--he was firmly convinced of it. He was sure that he had
really done me an unexampled benefit in taking me away from my shabby,
poverty-stricken home and my equivocal surroundings, and in making me
a rich man’s wife--his own legal, unassailable wife.’ She laughed, and
there was a sound of bitter tears in her laugh.
‘I laugh now. I laughed then, too. I could not help it. It was all
so--funny, in a way. I had intended to answer him, to pour out upon him
the whole torrent of my wrongs and my sufferings and my martyrdom; but
as soon as he had spoken those words, and I saw that he really meant
and believed them all, I knew it would be utterly useless. It would
only waste time, and wear out my energies, so I said nothing of all
that. I resolved that he should think me as bad as possible, that he
should have every ground for appealing to the world and the law, when
I had gone, and saying, “See how she has betrayed me! Set me free from
her at once.” So I gathered myself together, and said,
‘“You are perfectly right. I do hate you. I loathe you, and I wish with
all my heart that you were dead. Then I should have a chance of being
happy before I have grown too old and too warped and too ill-tempered
to be capable of feeling what happiness is.”
‘“Happiness--oh!” said he: “which of them is it, pray, whose sighs you
wish to reward? That painter-fellow, with the sentimental eyes, or the
Englishman with the starched cravat--your dear friend’s brother? It’s a
race between them, as I have seen for some time, and I only am in the
way.”
‘I did not understand him altogether. I suppose it was just an
additional insult thrown in. He wished to drag in Minna’s name because
I love her, and say something offensive about her or about someone who
belonged to her. I do not know whether I turned red or pale with anger.
I felt a hot glow all over me, like a breath of air from a furnace. “I
could be happier with a ploughboy, who was honest, than with you,” I
said, “if one must have someone to be happy with. I don’t know why one
should not be happy alone, feeling free and decent, and able to respect
one’s self again, mind and body.”
‘“You will never be happy, then, either with or without someone,” was
his answer. “Never, while I am here. I am not dead yet, and I’m not
going to die, whatever you may think; and as long as I live here, you
are my wife--and here you have to stay. You can do nothing to help
yourself--nothing at all.”
‘Two thoughts came into my mind at the same moment, I think. First,
that I had so behaved that this creature trusted me; despite all he
had done to crush every good feeling in me, he had not been able to
crush out my truth and my honesty. While he accused me in one breath
of wishing him dead and of being in a plot to bring about his death,
in the next he told me I could never be free while he lived, because
he took it for granted that I should never desert him. That was one
thought, and the next was, as my eyes fell upon a table on which stood
some drugs, that in one moment I could put him out of the way, still
his horrible voice, kill his abominable power for ever.
‘I did not speak for a moment. The two thoughts were fighting together
in my mind. I went up to the table, and took from it the bottle of
morphia and the little needle for injecting it, and I went up to him.
‘The last thing the doctors had said was that he was to have morphia in
moderate quantities. I knew exactly how much. So long as the paroxysms
of violent pain lasted it was to be administered. I went up to him, as
I tell you. I suppose there must have been some change in my look or on
my face, for he suddenly said, in a voice of suspicion and fear:
‘“What have you got there? What do you want? Why do you look at me
like that?”
‘“You know what this is,” said I; “it is the morphia which they have
been giving you, to take away your pain and make you sleep. You have
behaved in such a manner to Nurse Agnes that--you heard what she
said--she has gone away, and does not intend to enter your room again.
You have treated your servant Morrison so that he is in much the same
frame of mind. I do not know whether he will come, even if I were to
go to him and beg him to do so. You have, as usual, left it all to me,
because no one else will come near you. Do you think that I have a
spirit more slavish and more contemptible than that of these servants?
I have just told you that I loathe you and wish you were dead. By the
order of your doctors, and especially of this great authority from
London, you are to have an injection of this stuff in your arm every
night at bedtime, and as much oftener as may be necessary. You think
I shall endure everything, I see. You think I shall only talk about
my unhappiness--never rebel against it. You are forced to honour me
and trust me in your heart, you horrible coward! while you abuse me
and tell shameful lies of me with your lips. Do you think I shall bear
it for ever? What if I choose to put an end to it now? You could not
prevent my doing so. You are weak and helpless and paralyzed. I am
strong and young and able to move where I will and do all I wish to,
physically.
‘“I can do just what I like with you as you lie there. I can fill this
syringe with the quantity of morphia prescribed by the doctor, and so
secure you some hours of rest and forgetfulness of your pain, or I
can put into it three times as much as the doctor ordered, and so put
you into a sleep from which you will never awaken. Do you understand?
Now, this instant, I can do it. Reflect well and speak honestly, if you
can, for once in your life. Do you think it would be very strange if
I decided to give you too much? Do you really think I am incapable of
it? Do you think also that I am not quite clever enough to escape any
disagreeable consequences of doing it? Bah! speak the truth. Tell me,
which do you think would be my best plan--from my point of view, not
from yours?”
‘Then he was really terrified, and showed the abject coward which in
his soul he is. He began to whine and cry and whimper, and to tell me
how he loved me, and that it was because he saw that other people loved
me also, and he could not bear it, that he was jealous and fretful
and irritable. He said he had always adored me from the very first;
he said a great many things the hearing of which made me sick with
rage. Then he whined and prayed and cried, and begged me to spare his
life, and then he said he trusted me and always had trusted me. He was
so pitiful, so abject, so utterly contemptible, that I began to feel
as if killing him would be like stepping on some crawling beetle or
caterpillar and killing it--an ugly, repulsive little object, padre
mio, but quite pitiably helpless when confronted with a human being....
And then it was true: he did trust me. I never yet deceived anyone
who trusted in me. I became recklessly contemptuous of all that might
happen. I took my resolution. Physically I would spare him, morally I
would slay him. I was a little mad, I think, or was I sane then, and
am I a little mad now?’
She looked at him inquiringly.
‘You are sane enough now, carissima, and you were sane then. I see
nothing mad in anything you have said or done,’ her father told her.
‘Perhaps.’ She sighed profoundly, then went on: ‘I said to him,
“Listen; I am going to give you the hypodermic injection; just as much
as the doctor has ordered, and no more. It appears to me that I am
weak and foolish to neglect the opportunity which the gods afford me,
but I will do it. Then, as soon as you are asleep and unable to insult
anyone, I will call your servant and ask him to sit with you, and then
I shall leave this house, never to return to it. I will not tell you
where I am going, nor to whom. I am going to be happy. In spite of what
you say and of what you think, I am going to be happy and free, even
though you are here, alive, and I am married to you.”
‘He stared at me, and said: “I will not have any of your morphia. I
choose to be awake. I do not want my servant; I want you, and you must
sit with me, not he. I won’t be drugged to sleep that you may go to
your lover.”
‘“You cannot help yourself, mio caro,” I said to him. It was the first
time in all those years that I had called him so. “I am going to leave
you; that is all you need to know.” I took his arm, and he could not
resist. I could have shrieked and shuddered merely to touch him, but
I went through with it all. I measured the dose, and my hand did not
shake for an instant. “You see,” I said, “so many drops: watch me while
I drop them--so.”
‘And when it was ready I inserted the needle, gave the injection,
and replaced the things on the table. Then I waited a little while.
That was the worst of all. It was hideous. He tried to awake, not
to succumb to the dose. He could not. He talked to me quickly and
angrily, and I did not stop my ears. In spite of his efforts, the
words began to stammer on his lips, his eyes glazed and closed. He was
asleep--unconscious.
‘“Good-bye,” I said to him mockingly. Then I rang the bell, and
Morrison answered it. “Can you sit with Mr. Marchmont for a few hours,
Morrison?” I asked. “He will now sleep for some time, and I must have
rest, if I am to remain with him while he is awake.”
‘Morrison at once agreed, and took his place by the bedside. I wished
him good-night and went away.
‘I went to my room, rang for my maid, and told her she could go to
bed. I did not want anything more, and would undress myself. Then the
moments seemed hours, while I tore off my ornaments, and my evening
dress, and my satin shoes, and seized upon these dark things, and this
bonnet and veil--I will buy some other things here, carissimo, and
give these to the chambermaid. I was in a wild fever. I saw that it
was nearly half-past eleven. Hans must have been waiting two hours and
a half. Never mind. He would forgive me as soon as he knew, and his
recompense should be my whole life. Why do you look at me in that way?’
she added quickly.
‘His recompense!’ Signor Giuseppe repeated after her, and laid his hand
for a moment on her head.
‘Don’t, darling, don’t!’ said Fulvia, almost sharply. ‘Wait till I
have done, or I shall not be able to finish it. Though it seemed
an eternity, I don’t think I was five minutes in undressing and
redressing, and I did such a lot of things: locked up all my jewellery
and put the key of my dressing-case into an envelope and addressed it
to--its owner, and several other things. Then I stole downstairs, and
got out of the house, and flew along the park towards the boat-house
and the pond. The moon had come out, and gave me some light. I was
bent upon getting there, hearing his voice, throwing myself into his
arms. And yet, even as I flew along the path, even in that short
time, there came a thought into my mind which all at once caused me
to stand still. It was this, that I was going to give away what was
not mine--my name and my fame, my honour and my honesty. They were
not his--my husband’s--oh, don’t suppose that I was ever weak enough
for one moment to think that they were! If there had been only him to
consider, or only me! But there are always so many things. I don’t
know why it came to me then; but I knew all at once that this self of
mine, of which I was going to dispose so arbitrarily, was not really
mine. Nothing is really ours to which we have given others a claim by
a certain way of living and behaving and conducting ourselves. It was
not my own thing--it belonged to you, and to Minna, and to poor little
Rhoda even, and to everyone to whom my life heretofore had said, “This
is what I am--you may trust me,” and who would ever after be obliged to
feel and say, “She lied to us.” Perhaps my being able to stop and think
of that, and consider about it, then, showed me to be a cold-hearted
creature. I don’t think I am cold-hearted by nature,’ said Fulvia,
in a voice whose pathos wrung her hearer’s heart. ‘But--well, I put
it away from me. I went on; I said, “I have promised Hans too. He has
a claim as well.” But the eagerness was gone. I felt the taste of the
dust and ashes. It was not that I was afraid. I don’t know how to
explain it; I will not try. I will tell you what happened. I arrived
at last at the place. I did not see anyone, though the moon was up. A
terrible fear took possession of me. It was all so horrible. Where was
he? Certainly not outside. I went into the boat-house at last. It was
so dark there that I could see nothing. I called, “Hans!” I had to call
once or twice, before at last he answered. He had been worn out with
waiting, and had fallen asleep. At last I heard a movement, and his
voice said, “Yes?” “Come outside,” said I, “where it is light. I must
explain to you.” He rose from the bench on which he had been lying, and
followed me outside. “Hans!” I said, and held out my hands. “You told
me to be here after nine,” he said. “I was here before. I had given you
up. I thought you were fooling me.” “Oh, Hans, I could not help it. It
has been so awful,” I told him. “Don’t look at me like that--so coldly,
so cruelly. What have I done?” I asked, and my heart was growing every
moment colder. He shivered too. I was frightened.
‘“Why did you not come sooner?” he asked. “How can one arrange anything
at this time of night?”
‘“Oh, darling, there is nothing to arrange,” I exclaimed. “I am here. I
have left him for ever and ever. I shall never go back there any more.
It is all over. I have no one but you. Listen, Hans!” and then I told
him, in a few words, what had happened. He grew quite still and cold as
I spoke, with that stillness which one feels all through one, and which
is so terrible. When I had done, he looked at me, and said in a strange
voice, “You thought of murdering him? Good God!” and no more.
‘Then I knew that my hour was come. I knew I had risked everything, cut
myself off from everything, and broken with everything, to be, as you
once said to me, at the mercy of a _farceur_. I did not wait; I
suddenly pushed him away from me, and stood straight up, and said “Go!
You are no better than he is. You are just the same. Leave me. Go home,
and _leave_ me here.”
‘He was very much startled. He seemed to awaken from a dream, and a
flash came into his eyes, and he sprang towards me again, and would
have taken me in his arms.
‘“Leave you, Fulvia! Never, by God! Come to me. Come away with me.
I care for nothing if I have you.” Never had I heard his voice with
such a tone. Never had I seen his eyes with that look in them. Had he
so met me at first, I should have been his beyond recall and beyond
repentance. But it had all gone--all the belief, and all the love, and
all the dream had vanished. They were no more. He begged, he prayed,
he entreated, he conjured me. If he had never loved me before, he did
then. Nothing that he did or said made me waver. It was no virtue of
mine--there was no more passion left in me. There was no answer in my
heart. I scarcely spoke, till at last I felt I must make an end of it,
so I said a few cutting words, and asked if he were a poltroon that
he tormented me so, after what I had said. At that he seemed at last
to understand. He turned on his heel and went away. I was alone--quite
alone. I don’t know what time it was. I don’t know how long I stayed
there. I am sure I don’t know what I thought. Everything seemed to have
come to an end, and I said to myself, “Ah, if I could lie down here and
die.” But I knew that if I did lie down I should not die, because I am
strong; I should only sleep, and waken again to the bitter world, and
all its lies and all the horror of having to act a part. Life plays
with us as a cat plays with a mouse. It torments us as long as it can,
and at last strikes us down, and opens the grave for us.
‘It was after a long time, I suppose, that I at last thought of you,
oh Beppo! and the thought was like a ray of light in the blackness.
One moment before I had been standing by the side of the water, feeling
that there was nothing for me to do but to plunge into it. Because,
what could there be for anyone like me? Unless I had someone to go to?’
She stopped and looked at him, all the horror of that moment
reappearing in her eyes. Signor Giuseppe knew very well what must have
passed through her mind as she stood there, fully conscious of all
the pitfalls which this naughty world prepares and has in readiness
for such as she, if such as she once break through the ring-fence of
conventional propriety which fences them in. Spoiled for humble work,
not in will, but by the hothouse life of luxury, which had stamped her
with the stamp of fashion and distinction in outward appearance, devoid
of friends, without money, without ‘reference’--where could she have
hidden her misery? Where would she not have been speedily reduced to
the alternative of starvation, suicide, or dishonour? Society makes no
provision for exceptional cases--its code is that there must not be any
exceptional cases, and that such cases have themselves to thank for
their situation.
‘For all my awful wretchedness, I shuddered at the thought of killing
myself,’ Fulvia went on. ‘Have you not noticed, padre mio, how
much more ready these still, cold Northerners are to put an end to
themselves than we, who seem to feel so much more? Our thoughts and
our feelings are so much less complex than theirs, and violence and
interference with the course of nature are so much more foreign to us.
Don’t you think so?’
‘Oh yes, child! It is so much of a fact to me that I have ceased even
to think of it as remarkable. Well?’
‘Well, it all comes to an end: nothing grand, nothing heroic, or
violent, or tragic. I thought of you, as I said, and I asked myself,
“Would Beppo rather that I should go to him and cast myself on his care
and love, and shake him out of his quiet, contented life, and drag him
about with me--a wretched, ruined, unhappy woman--or that I should
bring all to an end now, in this pond?” In an instant, in a flash of
light, I knew what you would think and would feel. I turned away. I
felt so bruised, so broken, so crushed, that I could hardly crawl
along. I wandered about, looking at the house till I saw the light in
your window and knew that you were up. And at last I took courage to go
up to where I saw you standing, and--all the rest you know.’
‘It is the best that could have been done,’ he told her gently.
Fulvia was leaning back, utterly exhausted, in her chair. He stroked
her hands softly, and there was a long silence, till at last she opened
her eyes, and, looking at him fully, and with love unspeakable and
trust unbounded, said:
‘I will try to make you as happy and as contented as you were with
Minna. I will never think of anyone else. You know I can carry things
out when I wish to do it; and, oh, how I wish it now!’
Quite overcome, Signor Oriole had risen from his chair, and was walking
about the room, clearing his throat every now and then. Fulvia suddenly
sprang from hers, and interrupted him in his walk to and fro, put her
hands on his shoulders, and said:
‘You will trust me to try, will you not?’
The next moment she was lying in his arms, weeping in one wild,
unquenchable flood all the tears due to her outraged innocence, her
blighted youth, her darkened future; and in spite of it all--in spite
of the agony, of the hopelessness, of the bitter hardness of it
all--there was, deep down in both hearts, the consciousness, unspoken,
unformulated, but felt, that at this moment the healing of the gaping
wounds had begun, and that the future might bring entire restoration.