'Maria, grant me this one moment of unalloyed sweetness! Let me tell you all that is in my heart.'

She rose. 'Forgive, me,' she said gently, without anger or bitterness and with an audible quiver of emotion in her voice. 'Forgive me but I cannot listen to you. You pain me very much.'

'Well, I will not say anything—only stay—I implore you.'

She seated herself once more. It was like the days of Schifanoja come back again. The same matchless grace of the delicate head drooping under the masses of hair as under some divine chastisement, the same deep and tender shadow, a fusion of diaphanous violet and soft blue, surrounding the tawny brown eyes.

'I only wanted,' Andrea went on humbly, 'I only wanted to remind you of the words I spoke, the words you listened to that morning in the park under the shadow of the trees, in an hour that will always remain sacred in my memory.'

'I have not forgotten them.'

'Since that day my unhappiness has become ever deeper, darker, more poignant. I can never tell you all I have suffered, all the abject misery of that time: can never tell you how often in spirit I have called upon you as if my last hour had come, nor describe to you the thrill of joy, the upward bound of my whole soul towards the light of hope, if, for one moment, I dared to think that the remembrance of me still lived in your heart.'

He spoke in the accents of that morning long ago; he seemed to have regained the same passionate rapture: all his vaguely felt happiness rose to his lips. And she sat motionless, listening with drooping head, almost in the same attitude as on that day; and round her lips, those lips which she vainly sought to keep firm, there played the same expression of dolorous rapture.

'Do you remember Vicomile? Do you remember our ride through the wood on that evening in October?'

Donna Maria bent her head slightly in sign of assent.

'And the words you said to me?' the young man went on in a lower voice, but in a tone of suppressed passion and bending down to look into the eyes she kept steadfastly fixed upon the ground.

She raised them now to his—those sweet, patient, pathetic eyes.

'I have forgotten nothing,' she replied, 'nothing, nothing! Why should I hide my heart from you? You are good and noble-minded, and I have absolute trust in your generosity. Why should I act towards you like an ordinary foolish woman? I told you that evening that I loved you. Your question implies another one, I see that very well—you want to ask me if I love you still.'

She faltered for a moment and her lips quivered. 'I love you.'

'Maria!'

'But you must give up all claim upon my love, you must keep away from me. Be noble, be generous, and spare me the struggle which frightens me. I have suffered much, Andrea, I have borne much; but the thought of having to struggle with you, to defend myself against you, fills me with a nameless terror. You do not know at the cost of what sacrifices I have at last gained peace of heart; you do not know what lofty and cherished ideals I have been obliged to bid farewell to—poor ideals! I am a changed woman because I could not help it; I have had to place myself on a lower level.'

There was a note of grave, sweet sadness in her voice.

'In those first days after I met you, I abandoned myself to the alluring sweetness, let myself drift with eyes closed to the distant peril. I thought—he shall never know anything from me, I shall never know anything from him. I had nothing to regret and therefore I felt no fear. But you spoke—you said things to me that no one had ever said before, and then you forced my avowal from me. The danger suddenly appeared before me, unmistakable, imminent. And then I abandoned myself to a fresh dream. Your mental distress touched me to the heart, caused me profound pain. "Impurity has sullied his soul," I thought to myself. "Oh, that I had the power to purify it again! What happiness to offer myself up as a sacrifice for his regeneration!" Your unhappiness attracted mine. I thought I might scarcely be able to console you, but I hoped at least you might find relief in having another soul to answer eternally Amen to all your plaints.'

She uttered the last words with a face so suffused with spiritual exaltation that Andrea felt a wave of half-religious joy sweep over him, and his one desire, at that moment, was to take those dear and spotless hands in his and breathe upon them the ineffable rapture of his soul.

'But it cannot—it may not be.' she went on, shaking her head in sad regret. 'We must renounce that hope for ever. Life is inexorable. Without intending it, you would destroy a whole existence—and more than one perhaps——'

'Maria, Maria! do not say such things!' the young man broke in, leaning over her once more and taking one of her hands with a sort of timid entreaty, as if looking for some sign of permission before venturing on the liberty. 'I will do anything you tell me; I will be humble and obedient, my one thought shall be to carry out your wishes, my one desire, to die with your name upon my lips. In renouncing you, I renounce my salvation, I fall back into irremediable ruin and disaster. I have no words to express my love for you. I have need of you. You alone are true—you are Truth itself, for which my soul is ever seeking. All else is vanity—all else is nought. To give you up is like signing my death-warrant. But if this immolation is necessary to your peace of mind, it shall be done—I owe it to you. Do not fear, Maria, I will never do anything to hurt you.'

He held her hand, but he did not press it. His voice had none of the old passionate ardour, it was submissive, disconsolate, heart-broken, full of infinite weariness. And Maria was so blinded by her compassion that she did not draw away her hand, but let it lie in his, abandoning herself for a moment to the unutterable rapture of that light contact—a rapture so subtle as hardly to have any physical origin—as if some magnetic fluid, issuing from her heart, diffused itself through her arm to her fingers and there flowed forth in a wave of ineffable sweetness. When Andrea ceased speaking, certain words of his, uttered on that memorable morning in the park and revived by the recent sound of his voice, returned to her memory—'Your mere presence suffices to intoxicate me—I feel it flowing through my veins like blood, flooding my soul with nameless emotion——'

There was an interval of silence. From time to time, a gust of wind shook the window-panes and bore fitfully with it the distant roar of the city and the rumbling of carriage wheels. The light was cold and limpid as spring water; shadows were gathering thickly in the corners of the room and in the folds of the Oriental curtains; from pieces of furniture, here and there, came gleams of ivory and mother-of-pearl; a great gilded Buddha shone out of the background under a tall palm. Something of the exotic mystery of these things was diffused over the drawing-room.

'And what do you suppose is going to become of me now?' asked Andrea.

She seemed lost in perplexing thought. There was a look of irresolution on her face as if she were listening to two contending voices.

'I cannot describe to you,' she answered, passing her hand over her eyes with a rapid gesture, 'I cannot describe to you the strange foreboding that has weighed upon me for a long time past. I do not know what it is, but I am afraid.'

Then, after a pause—'Oh, to think that you may be suffering, sick at heart,—my poor darling—and that I can do nothing to ease your pain, may not be with you in your hour of anguish—may not even know that you have called me—Mio Dio!'

There was a quiver of tears in her breaking voice. Andrea hung his head but did not speak.

'To think that my spirit will follow you always, always, and yet that it may never, never mingle with yours, will never, never be understood by you!—Alas, poor love!'

Her voice was full of tears and her mouth was drawn with pain.

Ah, do not desert me—do not desert me!' cried the young man, seizing her two hands and half-kneeling at her feet, a prey to overwhelming excitement—'I will never ask anything of you—I want nothing but your pity. A little pity from you is more—far more—to me than passionate love from any other woman—you know it. Your hand alone can heal me, can bring me back to life, can raise me out of the slough into which I have sunk, give me back my faith and free me from the bondage of those shameful things that corrupt me and fill me with horror. Dear—dear—hands!'

He bent over them and pressed his lips to them in a long kiss, abandoning himself with half-closed eyes to the utter sweetness of it.

'I can feel you tremble,' he murmured in an indefinable tone.

She rose abruptly, trembling from head to foot, giddy, paler still than on the morning when they walked together beneath the flower-laden trees. The wind still shook the panes; there was a dull clamour in the distance as of a riotous crowd. The shrill cries borne on the wind from the Quirinal increased her agitation.

'Go, Andrea—please go—you must not stay here any longer. You shall see me some other time—whenever you like, but go now, I entreat you——'

'Where shall I see you again?'

'At the concert to-morrow—good-bye.'

She was as perturbed and agitated as if she had been guilty of some grave fault. She accompanied him to the door of the room. When she found herself alone, she hesitated, not knowing what to do next, still under the sway of her terror. Her temples throbbed, her cheeks and her eyes burned with fierce intensity, while cold shivers ran through her limbs. But on her hands she still felt the pressure of that beloved mouth, a sensation so surpassingly sweet that she wished it might remain there for ever indelible like some divine impress.

She looked about her. The light was fading, things looked shapeless in the shadows, the great Buddha gleamed with a weird pale light. The cries came up from the street fitfully. She went over to a window, opened it and leaned out. An icy wind blew through the street; in the direction of the Piazza dei Termini, they were already lighting the lamps. Across the way, at the Villa Aldobrandini, the trees swayed to and fro, their tops touched with a faint red glow. A huge crimson cloud hung solitary in the sky over the Torre delle Milizie.

The evening struck her as strangely lugubrious. She withdrew from the window and seated herself again where she had just had her conversation with Andrea. Why had Delfina not returned yet? She earnestly desired to escape from her thoughts, and yet she weakly allowed herself to linger in the place where, only a few minutes ago, Andrea had breathed and spoken, had sighed out his love and his unhappiness. The struggles, the resolutions, the contrition, the prayers, the penances of four months had been wiped out, made utterly unavailing in one second of time, and she sank down more weary and vanquished than ever, without the will or the power to fight against the foes that beset her in her own heart, against the feelings that were upheaving her whole moral foundations. And while she gave way to the anguish and despair of a conscience which feels all its courage oozing from it, she still had the feeling that something of him lingered in the shadows of the room and enveloped her with all the sweetness of a passionate caress.