A carriage came early for Sister Giovanna that evening, and the
footman sent in a message by the portress. The patient was worse, he
said, and the doctor hoped that the nurse would come as soon as she
conveniently could. She came down in less than five minutes, in her
wide black cloak, carrying her little black bag in her hand. It was
raining heavily and she drew the hood up over her head before she left
the threshold, though the servant was holding up a large umbrella.
The portress had asked the usual questions of him as soon as he
presented himself, but Sister Giovanna repeated them. Was the carriage
from the Villino Barini? It was. To take the nurse who was wanted for
Baroness Barini? Yes; the Signora Baronessa was worse, and that was
why the carriage had come half-an-hour earlier. The door of the
brougham was shut with a sharp snap, the footman sprang to the box
with more than an average flunkey's agility, and the nun was driven
rapidly away. Knowing that the house she was going to was one of those
little modern villas on the slope of the Janiculum which have no
arched entrance and often have no particular shelter at the front
door, she did not take the trouble to push her hood back, as she would
need it again so soon.
In about ten minutes the carriage stopped, the footman jumped down
with his open umbrella in his hand, and let her into the house. Before
she could ask whether she had better leave her cloak in the hall, the
man was leading the way upstairs; it was rather dark, but she felt
that the carpet under her feet was thick and soft. She followed
lightly, and a moment later she was admitted to a well-lighted room
that looked like a man's library; the footman disappeared and shut the
door, and the latch made a noise as if the key were being turned; as
she supposed such a thing to be out of the question, however, she was
ashamed to go and try the lock.
She thought she was in the study of the master of the house and that
some one would come for her at once, and she stood still in the middle
of the room; setting down her bag on a chair, she pushed the hood back
from her head carefully, as nuns do, in order not to discompose the
rather complicated arrangement of the veil and head-band.
She had scarcely done this when, as she expected, a door at the end of
the room was opened. But it was not a stranger that entered; to her
unspeakable amazement, it was Giovanni Severi. In a flash she
understood that by some trick she had been brought to his brother's
dwelling. She was alone with him and the door was locked on the
outside.
She laid one hand on the back of the nearest chair, to steady herself,
wondering whether she were not really lying ill in her bed and
dreaming in the delirium of a fever. But it was no dream; he was
standing before her, looking into her face, and his own was stern and
dark as an Arab's. When he spoke at last, his voice was low and
determined.
'Yes. You are in my house.'
Her tongue was loosed, with a cry of indignation.
'If you are not a madman, let me go!'
'I am not mad.'
His eyes terrified her, and she backed away from him towards the
locked door. She almost shrieked for fear.
'If you have a spark of human feeling, let me out!'
'I am human,' he answered grimly, but he did not move to follow her.
'By whatever you hold sacred, let me go!' She was wrenching at the
lock in despair with both hands, but sideways, while she kept her eyes
on his.
'I hold you sacred--nothing else.'
'Sacred!' Her anger began to outbrave her terror now. 'Sacred, and you
have trapped me by a vile trick!'
'Yes,' he answered, 'I admit that.'
He had not moved again and there was a window near her. She sprang to
it and thrust the curtains aside, hoping to open the frame before he
could stop her. But though she moved the fastenings easily, she could
do no more, with all her strength, and Giovanni still stood
motionless, watching her.
'You cannot open that window,' he said quietly. 'If you scream, no one
will hear you. Do you think I would have brought you to a place where
you could get help merely by crying out for it? The risk was too
great. I have made sure of being alone with you as long as I choose.'
The nun drew herself up against the red curtains.
'I did not know that you were a coward,' she said.
'I am what you have made me, brave, cowardly, desperate--anything you
choose to call it! But such as I am, you must hear me to the end this
time, for you have no choice.'
Sister Giovanna understood that there was no escape and she stood
quite still; but he saw that her lips moved a little.
'God is not here,' he said, in a hard voice, for he knew that she was
praying.
'God is here,' she answered, crossing her hands on her breast.
He came a step nearer and leaned on the back of a chair; he was
evidently controlling himself, for his movements were studiedly
deliberate, though his voice was beginning to shake ominously.
'If God is with you, Angela, then He shall hear that I love you and
that you are mine, not His! He shall listen while I tell you that I
will not give you up to be murdered by priests for His glory! Do what
He will, He shall not have you. I defy Him!'
The nun shrank against the curtain, not from the man, but at the
words.
'At least, do not blaspheme!'
'I must, if it is blasphemy to love you.'
'Yours is not love. Would to heaven it were, as I thought it was to-day.
Love is gentle, generous, tender----'
'Then be all three to me; for you love me, in spite of everything!'
'You have taught me to forget that I ever did,' she answered.
'Learn to remember that you did, to realise that you do, and forget
only that I have used a trick to bring you here--a harmless trick, one
carriage for another, my brother's orderly for a servant. I found out
from Madame Bernard where you were going and I sent for you before the
hour. You are as safe here as if you were praying in your chapel; in a
few minutes the carriage will take you back, you will say you got into
the wrong one by mistake, which is quite true, and the right one will
take you where you are to go; you will be scarcely half-an-hour late
and no one will ever know anything more about it.'
Sister Giovanna had listened patiently to his explanation, and
believed what he said. He had always been impulsive to rashness, but
now that her first surprise had subsided she was less afraid. He had
evidently yielded to a strong temptation with the idea of forcing her
to listen to him, and in reality, if she had understood herself, she
was not able to believe that he would hurt her or bring any disgrace
upon her.
'If you are in earnest,' she said, when he had finished, 'then let me
go at once.'
'Presently,' he answered. 'This afternoon you made me promise to hear
quietly what you had to say, and I did my best. I could not help your
being frightened just now, I suppose--after all, I have carried you off
from the door of your Convent, and I meant you to understand that you
were helpless, and must listen. I ought to have put it differently,
but I am not clever at such things. All I ask is that you will hear
me. After all, that is what you asked of me to-day.'
He had begun to walk up and down before her, while he was speaking;
but he did not come near her, for the chair stood between her and the
line along which he was pacing backwards and forwards. Something in
his way of speaking reassured her, as he jerked out the rather
disconnected sentences. Women often make the mistake of thinking that
when we men begin to stumble away from the straight chalk-line of that
logic in which we are supposed by them to take such pride, our purpose
is wavering, whereas the opposite is often the case. Men capable of
sudden, direct, and strong action are often poor talkers, particularly
when they are just going to spring or strike. A little hesitation is
more often the sign of a near outbreak than of any inward weakening.
But Sister Giovanna was deceived.
'I shall be forced to listen, if you insist,' she said, moving half a
step forward from the curtain, 'but how can I trust you, while I am
your prisoner?'
'You can trust me, if you will be generous,' Giovanni answered.
'I do not know what you mean by the word,' replied the nun cautiously.
'If I am not generous, as you mean it, what then?'
Severi stopped in his walk; his face began to darken again, and his
voice was rough and hard.
'What then? Why then, remember what I am and where you are!'
Sister Giovanna drew back again.
'I would rather trust in God than trust you when you speak in that
tone,' she said.
He had used the very words she had spoken in the cloister when he had
tried to take her by the arm, but they had a very different meaning
now; his dangerous temper was rising again and he was threatening her.
Yet her answer produced an effect she was far from expecting. He
turned to the writing-table near him, opened one of the drawers and
took out an army revolver. Sister Giovanna watched him. If he was only
going to kill her she was not afraid.
'I will force you to trust me,' he said, quickly examining the charge
as he came towards her.
'By threatening me with that thing?' she asked with contempt. 'You are
mistaken!'
He was close to her, but he offered her the butt-end of the weapon.
'No,' he said, 'I am not mistaken. It is I who fear death, as long as
you are alive, and here it is, in your hand.' But she would not take
the revolver from him. 'You will not take it? Well, there it is.' He
laid it on the chair, which he placed beside her. 'If I come too near
you, or try to touch even your sleeve, you can use it. The law will
acquit you, and even praise you for defending yourself in need.'
'There must be no need,' she answered, looking at him fixedly. 'Say
quickly what you have to say.'
'Will you not sit down, then?'
'No, thank you. I would rather not.'
It would have seemed like consenting to be where she was; and besides,
the revolver lay on the nearest available chair and she would not
touch it, much less hold it in her hand, if she sat down to listen.
Giovanni leaned back against the heavy table at some distance from
her, resting his hands on the edge, on each side of him.
'After I left you to-day,' he began, 'I had a long talk with Monsignor
Saracinesca in the street. I asked him questions about obtaining a
dispensation for you. He made it look impossible, of course--that was
to be expected! But I got one point from him, which is important. He
made it quite clear to me that the request to be released from your
vows must come from you, if it is to be considered at all. You
understand that, do you not?'
'Is it possible that you yourself do not yet understand?' Sister
Giovanna asked, as quietly as she could. 'Did I not tell you to-day
that no power could loose me from my vows?'
'You were mistaken. There is a power that can, and that rests with the
Pope, and he shall exercise it.'
'I will not ask for a dispensation. I have told you that it is an
impossibility----'
'There is no such thing as impossibility for men and women who love,'
Giovanni answered. 'Have you forgotten the last words you said to me
before I sailed for Africa?' He spoke gently now, and Sister Giovanna
turned her face from him. 'You said, "I will wait for you for ever."
Do you remember?'
'Yes. I remember.'
'Did you "wait for ever," Angela?'
She looked at him again, and then came forward a little, drawn by an
impulse she could not resist.
'Did I love another man, that you reproach me?' she asked. 'Such as my
life has been, have I lived it as a woman lives who has forgotten? I
know I have not. Yes, Giovanni, I have waited, but as one waits who
hopes to meet in heaven the dear one who is dead on earth. Do you
still find fault with me? Would you rather have had me go back to the
world and to society after mourning you as long as a girl of nineteen
could mourn for a man to whom she had not been openly engaged? Was I
wrong? If you had really been dead and could have seen me, would you
have wished that I were living differently?'
For a moment he was moved and held out one hand towards her, hoping
that she would come nearer.
'No,' he answered--'no, dear----'
'But that was the only question,' she said earnestly, 'and you have
answered it!'
She would not take his hand and Giovanni dropped his own with a
gesture of disappointment.
'No,' he replied, in a colder tone, 'it is not the question, for you
have not told me all the truth. If I had not been gone five years, if
I had come back the day before you took the last vows, would you have
taken them?'
'No, indeed!'
'If I had come the very next day after, would you not have done your
best to be set free?'
There was an instant's pause before she spoke; then the answer came,
clear and distinct.
'No.'
Severi turned from her with an impatient movement of his compact head,
and tapped the carpeted floor with his heel. His answer broke from his
lips harshly.
'You never loved me!'
She would have done wisely if she had been silent then; but she could
not, for his words denied the truth that had ruled her life.
'Better than I knew,' she said. 'Better than I knew, even then.'
'Even then?' The words had hope in them. 'And now?' He was suddenly
breathless.
'Yes, even now!' The tide of truth lifted her from her feet and swept
her onward, helpless. 'Giovanni! Giovanni! Do you think it costs me
nothing to keep my word with God?'
But he had been disappointed too often now, and he could not believe
at once.
'It costs you less than it would to keep your faith with me,' he
answered.
'It is not true! Indeed, it is not true!'
'Then let the truth win, dear! All the rest is fable!'
He was at her side now. She had tried to resist, but not long, and her
hand was in his, though her face was turned away.
'No--no----' she faltered, but he would not let her speak.
'All a fable of sorrow and a dream of parting, sweetheart! And now we
have waked to meet again, your hand in my hand, my heart to your
heart--your lips to mine----'
She almost shrieked aloud in terror then and threw herself back
bodily, as from the edge of a precipice. She might have fallen if he
had not still held her hand, and as she recovered herself she tried to
withdraw it. In her distress, words came that she regretted
afterwards.
'Do you think that only you are human, of us two?' she cried, in
passionate protest against passion itself, against him, against life,
but still twisting her wrist in his grip and trying to wrench it away.
'For the love of heaven, Giovanni----'
'No--for love of me----'
She broke from him, for when he felt that he was hurting her his
fingers relaxed. But she could not stay her own words.
'Yes, I love you,' she cried almost fiercely, as she stepped
backwards. 'Right or wrong, I cannot unmake myself, and as for lying
to you, I will not! God is my witness that I mean to love you living
as I have loved you dead, without one thought of earth or one regret
for what might have been! But, oh, may God forgive me, too, if I wish
that we were side by side in one grave, at peace for ever!'
'Dead? Why? With life before us----'
'No!' She interrupted him with rising energy. 'No, Giovanni, no! I was
weak for a moment, but I am strong again. I can wait for you, and you
will find strength to wait for me. You are so brave, Giovanni, you can
be so generous, when you will! You will wait, too!'
'For what?'
'For the end that will be the beginning, for God's great To-morrow,
when you will come to be with me for ever and ever, beyond the world,
and all parting and all pain!'
There was a deep appeal to higher things in her words and in her
voice, too, but it did not touch him; he only knew that at the very
moment when she had seemed to be near yielding, the terrible
conviction of her soul had come once more between him and her.
'There is no beyond,' he answered, chilled and sullen again. 'You live
in a lying legend; your life is a fable and your sacrifice is a
crime.'
The cruel words struck her tormented heart, as icy hailstones bruise
the half-clad body of a starving child, out in the storm.
'You hurt me very much,' she said in a low voice.
'Forgive me!' he cried quickly. 'I did not mean to. I forget that you
believe your dreams, for I cannot live in visions as you do. I only
see a blind force, striking in the dark, a great injustice done to us
both--a wrong I will undo, come what may!'
'You know my answer to that. You can undo nothing.'
'I am not answered yet. You say you love me--prove it!'
'Only my life can,' said the nun; 'only our two lives can prove our
love, for we can live for each other still, perhaps we shall be
allowed to die for each other, and in each other we shall find
strength to resist----'
'Not to resist love itself, Angela.'
'No, not to resist all that is good and true in love.'
'I cannot see what you see,' he answered. 'Nothing human is beyond my
comprehension, good or bad, but you cannot make a monk of me, still
less a saint--a Saint Louis of Gonzaga, who was too modest to look his
own mother in the face!'
He laughed roughly, but checked himself at once, fearing to hurt her
again.
She turned to him with a look of gentle authority.
'In spite of what you have done to-night,' she said, 'you are such a
manly man, that you can be the man you will. Listen! If another woman
tried to get your love, could you resist her? Would you, for love of
me?'
'She would have small chance, you know that well enough.'
'There is another woman in me, Giovanni. Resist her!'
'I do not understand.'
'You must try! There is another woman in me, or what is left of her,
and she is quite different from my real self. Resist her for my sake,
as I am fighting her with all my strength. It was she who tempted you
to bring me here by a trick you are ashamed of already; it was she
that made me weak, just now; but she is not the woman you love, she is
not Angela, she is not worthy of you; and as for me, I hate her, with
all my soul!'
Severi had said truly that he could not understand, and instead of
responding to her appeal, he turned impatient again.
'You choose your words well enough,' he answered, 'but women's fine
speeches persuade women, not men. No man was ever really moved to
change his mind by a woman's eloquence, though we will risk our lives
for a look of yours, for a touch--for a kiss!'
Sister Giovanna sighed and turned from him. The razor-edge of
extremest peril was passed, for the words that left him cold and
unbelieving had brought back conviction to her soul. She could live
for him, pray for him, die for him, but she would not sin for him nor
lift a hand to loose the vows that bound her to the religious life.
Yet she did not see that she was slowly driving him to a state of
temper in which he might break all barriers. Very good women rarely
understand men well until it is too late, because men very rarely make
any appeal to what is good in woman, whereas they lie in wait for all
her weaknesses. It is almost a proverbial truth that men of the most
lawless nature, if not actually of the worst character, are often
loved by saintly women, perhaps because the true saint sees some good
in every one and believes that those who have least of it are the ones
who need help most. Sister Giovanna was not a saint yet, but she was
winning her way as she gained ground in the struggle that had been
forced upon her that night, so cruelly against her will, and having
got the better of a temptation, her charity made her think that
Giovanni Severi was farther from it than he was. Outward danger was
near at hand, just when inward peril was passed.
As if he were weary of the contest of words, he left the writing-table,
sat down in a big chair farther away, and stared at the pattern in the
carpet.
'You are forcing me to extremities,' he said, after a long pause, and
rather slowly. 'Unless you consent to appeal to the Pope for your
freedom, I will not let you leave this house. You are in my power
here, and here you shall stay.'
She was more surprised and offended than indignant at what she took
for an empty threat, and she was not at all frightened. Women never
are, when one expects them to be. She drew her long cloak round her
with simple dignity, crossed the room without haste, and stopped
before the locked door, turning her head to speak to him.
'It is time for me to go,' she said gravely. 'Open the door at once,
please.'
She could not believe that he would refuse to obey her, but he did not
move; he did not even look up, as he answered:
'If I keep you a prisoner, there will be a search for you. You may
stay here a day, a week, or a month, but in the end you will be found
here, in my rooms.'
'And set free,' the nun answered, from the door, with some contempt.
'Not as you think. You will be expelled from your order for scandalous
behaviour in having spent a night, or a week, or a month in an
officer's lodging. What will you do then?'
'If such a thing were possible, I would tell the truth and I should be
believed.' But her anger was already awake.
'The thing is very possible,' Giovanni answered, 'and no one will
believe you. It will be out of the question for you to go back to your
Convent, even for an hour. Even if the Mother Superior were willing,
it could not be done. In the Middle Ages, you would have been sent to
a prison for penitents for the rest of your life; nowadays you will
simply be turned out of your order with public disgrace, the papers
will be full of your story, your aunt will make Rome ring with it----'
'What do you mean by all this?' cried the Sister, breaking out at
last. 'Are you trying to frighten me?'
'No. I wish you to know that I will let nothing stand between you and
me--nothing, absolutely nothing.' He repeated the word with cold
energy. 'When it is known that you have been here for twenty-four
hours, you will be forced to marry me. Nothing else can save you from
infamy. Even Madame Bernard will not dare to give you shelter, for she
will lose every pupil she has if it is found out that she is
harbouring a nun who has broken her vows, a vulgar bad character who
has been caught in an officer's lodgings! That is what they will call
you!'
At first she had not believed that he was in earnest, but she could
not long mistake the tone of a man determined to risk much more than
life and limb for his desperate purpose. Her just anger leaped up like
a flame.
'Are you an utter scoundrel, after all? Have you no honour left? Is
there nothing in you to which a woman can appeal? You talk of being
human! You prate of your man's nature! And in the same breath you
threaten an innocent girl with public infamy, if she will not disgrace
herself of her own free will! Is that your love? Did I give you mine
for that? Shame on you! And shame on me for being so deceived!'
Her voice rang like steel and the thrusts of her deadly reproach
pierced deep. He was on his feet, in the impulse of self-defence,
before she had half done, trying to silence her--he was at her side,
calling her by her name, but she would not hear him.
'No, I believed in you!' she went on. 'I trusted you! I loved you--but
I have loved a villain and believed a liar, and I am a prisoner under
a coward's roof!' Beseeching, he tried to lay his hand upon her
sleeve; she mistook his meaning. 'Take care!' she cried, and suddenly
the revolver was in her hand. 'Take care, I say! A nun is only a woman
after all!'
He threw himself in front of her in an instant, his arms wide out, and
as the muzzle came close against his chest, he gave the familiar word
of command in a loud, clear tone:
'Fire!'
Their eyes met, and they were both mad.
'If you despise me for loving you beyond honour and disgrace, then
fire, for I would rather die by your hand than live without you! I am
ready! Pull the trigger! Let the end be here, this instant!'
He believed that she would do it, and for one awful moment she had
felt that she was going to kill him. Then she lowered the weapon and
laid it on the chair beside her with slow deliberation, though her
hands shook so much that she almost dropped it. As if no longer seeing
him, she turned to the door, folded her hands on the panel, and leaned
her forehead against them.
He heard her voice, low and trembling:
'Forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that trespass against us!'
His own hand was on the revolver to do what she had refused to do. As
when the cyclone whirls on itself, just beyond the still storm-centre,
and strikes all aback the vessel it has driven before it for hours, so
the man's passion had turned to destroy him. But the holy words stayed
his hand.
'Angela! Forgive me!' he cried in agony.
The nun heard him, raised her head and turned; his suffering was
visible and appalling to see. But she found speech to soothe it.
'You did not know what you were saying.'
'I know what I said.'
He could hardly speak.
'You did not mean to say it, when you brought me here.' She was
prompting him gently.
'No.' He almost whispered the one word, and then he regretted it. 'I
hardly know what I meant to say,' he went on more firmly, 'but I know
what I meant to accomplish. That is the truth, such as it is. I saw
this afternoon that I should never persuade you to ask for your
freedom unless I could talk to you alone where you must hear me; the
chance came unexpectedly and I took it, for it would never have come
again. I had no other place, I had not thought of what I should say,
but I was ready to risk everything, all for all--as I have done----'
'You have, indeed,' the nun said slowly, while he hesitated.
'And I have failed. Forgive me if you can. It was for love of you and
for your sake.'
'For my sake, you should be true and brave and kind,' answered the
Sister. 'But you ask forgiveness, and I forgive you, and I will try to
forget, too. If I cannot do that, I can at least believe that you were
mad, for no man in his senses would think of doing what you
threatened! If you wish to live so that I may tell God in my prayers
that I would have been your wife if I could, and that I hope to meet
you in heaven--then, for my sake, be a man, and not a weakling willing
to stoop to the most contemptible villainy to cheat a woman. Your
brother was nearly killed in doing his duty here and you have taken
his place. Make it your true calling, as I have made it mine to nurse
the sick. At any moment, either of us may be called to face danger,
till we die; we can feel that we are living the same life, for the
same hope. Is that nothing?'
'The same life? A nun and a soldier?'
'Why not, if we risk it that others may be safe?'
'And in the same hope? Ah no, Angela! That is where it all breaks
down!'
'No. You will live to believe it is there that all begins. Now let me
go.'
Severi shook his head sadly; she was so unapproachably good, he
thought--what chance had a mere man like himself of really
understanding her splendid, saintly delusion?
Pica had turned the key on the outside and had taken it out, obeying
his orders; but Giovanni had another like it in his pocket and now
unlocked and opened the door. The nun went out, drawing her black hood
quite over her head so that it concealed her face, and Giovanni
followed her downstairs and held an umbrella over her while she got
into the carriage, for it was still raining.
'Good-night,' he said, as Pica shut the door.
He did not hear her answer and the brougham drove away. When he could
no longer see the lights, he went upstairs again, and after he had
shut the door he stood a long time just where she had stood last. The
revolver was still on the chair under the bright electric light. He
fancied that the peculiar faint odour of her heavy cloth cloak, just
damped by the few drops of rain that had reached it, still hung in the
air. With the slightest effort of memory, her voice came back to his
ears, now gentle, now gravely reproachful, but at last ringing like
steel on steel in her generous anger. She had been present, in that
room, in his power, during more than twenty minutes, and now she was
gone and would never come again.
He had done the most rash, inconsequent, and uselessly bad deed that
had ever suggested itself to his imagination, and now that all was
over he wondered how he could have been at once so foolish, so brutal,
and so daring. Perhaps five years of slavery in Africa had unsettled
his mind; he had heard of several similar cases and his own might be
another; he had read of officers who had lost all sense of
responsibility after months of fighting in the tropics, perhaps from
having borne responsibility too long and unshared, who had come back,
after doing brave and honourable work, to find themselves morally
crippled for civilised life, and no longer able to distinguish right
from wrong or truth from falsehood.
It had all happened quickly but illogically, as events follow each
other in dreams, from the moment when he had gone to the Convent
hospital with Monsignor Saracinesca till the brougham drove away in
the dark, taking Angela back. He understood for the first time how men
whom every one supposed to be of average uprightness could commit
atrocious crimes; he shuddered to think what must have happened if a
mere chance had not changed his mood, making him ask Angela's
forgiveness and prompting him to let her go. She had touched him, that
was all. If her voice had sounded only a little differently at the
great moment, if her eyes had not looked at him with just that
expression, if her attitude had been a shade less resolute, what might
not have happened? For the conviction that he could force her to be
his wife if he chose to keep her a prisoner had taken possession of
him suddenly, when all his arguments had failed. It had come with
irresistible strength: the simplicity of the plan had been axiomatic,
its immediate execution had been in his power, and while she was
within the circle of his senses, his passion had been elemental and
overwhelming. He tried to excuse himself with that; men in such cases
had done worse things by far, and at least Angela had been safe from
violence.
But his own words accused him; he had threatened her, he had talked of
bringing infamy and public disgrace on the woman he loved, in order to
force her to marry him; he had thought only of that end and not at all
of the vile means; it all took shape now, and looked ugly enough. He
felt the blood surging to his sunburnt forehead for shame, perhaps for
the first time in his life, and the sensation was painfully
humiliating.
It made a deep impression on him when he realised it. Often enough he
had said that honour was his god, and he had taken pleasure in proving
that he who makes the rule of honour the law of his life must of
necessity be a good man, incapable of any falsehood or meanness or
cruelty, and therefore truthful, generous, and kind; in other words,
such an one must really be all that a good Christian aims at being.
The religion of honour, Giovanni used to say, was of a higher nature
than Christianity, since Christians might sin, repent, and be forgiven
again and again, to the biblical seventy times seven times; but a man
who did one dishonourable deed in his whole life ceased to be a man of
honour for ever. Having that certainty before his eyes, how could he
ever be in danger of a fall?
But now he was ashamed, for he had fallen; he had forsaken his deity
and his faith; the infamy he had threatened to bring on Angela had
come back upon him and branded him. It was not because he had brought
her to his lodging to talk with him alone, for he saw nothing
dishonourable in that, since he felt sure that no harm could come to
her in consequence. The dishonour lay in having thought of the rest
afterwards, and in having been on the point of carrying out his
threat. If he had kept her a prisoner only a few hours, the whole
train of results would most probably have followed; if he had not let
her go till the next day, they would have been inevitable and
irretrievable. Nothing could have saved Sister Giovanna then.
As he saw the truth more and more clearly, shame turned into something
more like horror, and as different from mere humiliation as remorse is
from repentance. Thinking over what he had done, he attempted to put
himself in Angela's place, and to see, or guess, how he would behave
if some stronger being tried to force him to choose between public
ignominy and breaking a solemn oath. Moreover, he endeavoured to
imagine what the nun, as distinguished from the mere woman, must have
felt when she found herself trapped in a man's rooms and locked in.
Even his unbelief instinctively placed Sister Giovanna higher in the
scale of goodness than Angela Chiaromonte; he was an unbeliever, but
not a scoffer, for somehow the rule of honour influenced him there,
too. Nuns could really be saints, and were often holy women, and the
fact that they were mistaken, in his opinion, only made their
sacrifice more complete, since they were to receive no reward where
they hoped for an eternal one; and he no longer doubted that Sister
Giovanna was as truly good in every sense as any of them. What must
she not have felt, less than an hour ago, when he had entered the
room, telling her roughly that she was in his power, beyond all reach
of help? Yet he had cherished the illusion that he was an honourable
man, who would never take cruel advantage of any woman, still less of
an innocent girl, far less, still, of a nursing nun, whose dress alone
would have protected her from insult amongst any men but criminals.
In his self-contempt he hung his head as he sat alone by the table,
half-fancying that if he raised his eyes he would see his own image
accusing him. Sister Giovanna herself would have been surprised if she
could have known how complete her victory had been. His god had
forsaken him in his great need, and though he could not believe in
hers, he was asking himself what inward strength that must be which
could make a woman in extremest danger so gentle and yet so strong, so
quick to righteous anger and yet so ready to forgive what he could
never pardon in himself.