The day had come, and Maria was waiting alone for her husband in one of the great rooms of the Palazzo Montalto. She had told Leone that she would send for him when he was wanted, and he was thoughtfully consoling himself for not being allowed to stay with her by polishing the barrel of his tin rifle with his tooth-brush and tooth powder, and he had the double satisfaction of seeing the gun shine beautifully and of making the hated instrument useless for its proper purpose. And meanwhile he wondered what his papa would be like, and whether he should always hate him.

But Maria walked restlessly up and down the drawing-room, and her head felt a little light. Now and then she stopped near one of the open windows and listened for the sound of wheels below and looked at her watch; and when she saw that it was still early, she breathed more freely at first and sat down, trying to rest and collect herself; but it was like thinking of resting ten minutes before execution, and she rose almost directly and began to walk again.

In her deep mourning she looked smaller and slighter in the great room than in the simpler surroundings she had left. She had indeed grown a little thinner of late, but she was not ill, nor even as tired as she had expected to be at the crucial moment. The people who feel most are not those whose nerves go to pieces in trouble, and who get absolute rest then by the doctor’s orders; they are more often those who are condemned to bear much, for the very reason that they cannot break down. In the age of torture the weak fainted or died and felt no more, but the strong were conscious and suffered to the end, and that was very long in coming. Yet no one ever pities the strong people.

Leone had told his mother that the white patch in her hair near her left temple had grown so much larger of late that three of his fingers only just covered it, and he had kindly offered to ink it for her; and she was somewhat thinner and a little paler than she had been a month earlier. But that was all there was to show that she had lived through weeks of distress. Montalto would scarcely notice the white lock at first, and her figure looked a shade more perfect for being slighter. She had never been a beauty, but she had more grace and charm than ever, and she was only seven-and-twenty. Giuliana Parenzo was much handsomer, but few men would have hesitated between her and Maria, who had that nameless something in every easy movement, in every lingering smile, in each soft tone of her warm voice, that wakes the man in men, as early spring stirs the life in the earth, deep down and out of sight. She did not understand what she had, and for years she had lived so much away from the lighter side of her own world that she had almost forgotten how the men used to gather round her and crowd upon each other instinctively to come nearer to her in the first year of her marriage, as they never did for Giuliana. She used to notice it then, and she had a laugh and a quick answer for each that showed no preference for any, and maddened them all till they were almost ready to quarrel with each other; but she had been very young then, and she had not understood, till one more reckless than the rest, the very one she trusted too much because she loved him only and too well, had laid waste for ever her fair young being, half-wrecked his own life, and broken the heart of an honest man.

And this honest man had forgiven her, for love of her; he too, and he more than any, had felt that her smile, and her breath, and her touch could drive him mad; and now that he was coming back, the minutes were passing quickly—a very few were left—still fewer—the last but one—the very last, as she heard his carriage roll in through the great arched entrance almost directly under her feet.

The doors were open beyond the drawing-room towards the ante-chamber; one door only was shut between that and the outer hall where the butler and footmen in deep mourning were waiting for their master.

She heard it opened, a once familiar voice asked in a formal tone where she was, and a servant answered. Then came the well-remembered step. In the painful tension of her hearing she heard it far away, even on the soft carpet, more clearly than she had ever heard it on tiled floor or marble pavement.

She steadied herself for a moment against the corner of a heavy table; and then the drawing-room door, which had been open, was shut, and Montalto was in the room, grey and hollow-eyed, coming towards her with thin hands outstretched in greeting. By a miracle of strength she went forward and met them with her own; met his eyes, and let him kiss her. She sank into a chair then, and he was close beside her, trying to speak in his old formal way, though he could hardly control his voice.

He seemed dreadfully changed, and when she saw him clearly a sharp pang of pity wrung her heart. His hair and pointed beard were quite grey, his colourless cheeks were painfully thin, and his hollow eyes burned with a feverish fire; he stopped speaking suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, as if he were paralysed, and his lips were parched, but his burning gaze did not waver from her face. She was a little frightened.

‘You are ill!’ she cried. ‘Let me get you something!’

She half rose, but his thin hand caught her and held her back.

‘No,’ he said hoarsely, ‘I am not ill. It is only that—that I have not—seen you—for so long!’

The words came in gasps; the last ones broke out in a frantic sob. She was moved, and willing to be touched, and though she had felt the old physical repulsion for him again the instant he came near her, she took one of his hands now and held it on her knees and stroked it kindly.

‘Diego!’

She did not know what to say, so she pronounced his name as softly and as affectionately as she could. But she had not spoken yet, and at the sound of her sweet voice the man broke down completely.

‘Oh, Maria, Maria!’ he moaned, drawing her hand to his chest and rocking himself a little. ‘It was all a dreadful dream—and I have got you back again—Maria——’

The over-strained, over-wrenched nerves gave way and he broke into a flood of tears; the drops ran down the furrows of his thin cheeks and his grey beard and wet her hand as he pressed passionate kisses upon it, rocking himself over it and sobbing convulsively.

Maria had lived through a good deal of suffering and some moments that now seemed too horrible to have been real, but she had never had any emotion forced upon her from without that had been harder to bear calmly than what she felt now.

If anything could strengthen the physical repulsion that made her shrink from her husband’s touch it was the sight of his unmanly tears and the sound of his hysterical sobbing. If anything could make it more difficult to hide her loathing it was the knowledge that she had wronged him and that she owed him gratitude for his free forgiveness. She would much rather have had him turn upon her like a maniac and strike her than be obliged to watch the painful heaving of his thin, bent shoulders, and feel the hot tears that ran down upon her hands.

It was so unutterably disgusting that she felt a terribly strong impulse to throw him off, to scream out that she would not take his forgiveness at any price, that he must let her go back and lead her own life with her child, as she had lived for so many years. He would suffer a little more, but what was a little more or less to a man who seemed half mad?

Then the wave of pity rushed back, and that was even worse. It was the pity a delicate woman feels for some wretched living thing half killed in an accident, so crushed and torn that the mere thought of touching it makes her shrink back and shiver to her very feet because the suffering creature is not her own. If it were hers but ever so little, if it were her dog, she would feel nothing but the instant womanly need of saving it if she could, of helping it to die easily if she could not.

Maria’s hand shrank from the scalding tears and writhed under the man’s frantic kisses. She shut her eyes and threw back her head; her face was drawn and white, and she prayed as she had never prayed in her life, for strength to bear all that was before her.

It had seemed just possible, because she had imposed it upon herself as her honourable duty, and because the husband she remembered had been before all things proud, and as full of a certain exaggerated dignity and self-respect as Spaniards sometimes are, though he was only half-Spanish. She had felt him coming back to her from far away, like a dark instrument of fate, to which she must give herself up body and mind, if she hoped to expiate her sin to the end. It had seemed hard, even dreadfully hard; but this was worse. Instead of the erect and formal figure and the grave dark face that had a certain strength in it which she could at least respect—instead of that, it was a broken-down man who came to her, prematurely old, a neurasthenic invalid no better than a hysterical woman, palsied with unmanly emotion, lacking all strength, self-respect and dignity, and without even a rag of vanity that might have passed for pride.

She was not stronger in her hands than other women, but she was sure that it would be easy to throw him from her; he would fall in a heap on the carpet, and would lie there helpless and sobbing. As she felt the instant contempt for his weakness, she prayed the more for courage to humble her own strength to it; and her eyes were still shut tight and her face was white and drawn. This was but the beginning of what must last for years, ten, twenty, as long as he lived, or until she died of it.

The future stretched out before her in length without end; she forgot everything else, and did not know that the tears ceased to flow and presently dried, nor that Montalto drew back from her into his own chair as the storm subsided within him. His voice woke her from the dream of pain to come.

‘I trust you will forgive my first emotion, my dear,’ he said with all his characteristic formality. ‘I see that I have made a painful impression on you. I shall not allow it to occur again.’

It was such a quick relief to see him more like himself, that she had almost a sensation of pleasure, and she smiled faintly while she tried to say something.

‘No—please—I’m so sorry——’

She could find no connected sentence. He rose and began to walk up and down before her, making half a dozen steps each way, a shadowy figure in black, passing and repassing before her.

‘I believe that I have made everything clear in my letters,’ he said, and then he glanced at her from time to time without pausing in his walk while he talked. ‘I shall not repeat anything I have written, but there are one or two other matters of which I must speak to you before we begin life again together, Maria. They need not be mentioned more than once either. It is better to be done with everything which may be in the least painful to you as soon as possible.’

In spite of the formal manner, there were kind inflections in his tone. It seemed marvellous that he should have recovered himself so soon, and it was only possible because such exhibitions of weakness were not really natural to him. Maria had felt relieved as soon as he had begun to talk quietly, and when he left his seat, her physical repugnance to him began to subside within its old limits. But at the same time she felt a vague fear that he was going to speak of Leone.

‘You have shown remarkable tact, my dear,’ he went on, ‘and you will have no difficulty in making your friends understand that our long separation has been principally due to my mother’s condition, and that since she is gone’—his voice sank a little—‘we have resumed our married life. This will be easy, no doubt. May I ask, without indiscretion, who your most intimate friends are?’

‘Giuliana Parenzo is my only intimate friend,’ Maria answered at once.

‘I am glad of that,’ said Montalto, approving. ‘She is a thoroughly nice woman in all ways, and everybody respects her. Are there any others whom you see often?’

‘I have dined a good many times with the Campodonico and the Saracinesca and the Boccapaduli—sometimes with the Trasmondo. I have never gone to balls. On the whole, I have tried to be on friendly terms with most of the people who have children of Leone’s age.’

She had boldly brought forward the question which she thought he meant to reach, and she waited for his reply. But he would not take it up.

‘Leone,’ he repeated, in a musing tone. ‘Friends for Leone. Yes, yes—that was quite right. I will see him by and by.’

‘He is waiting to be called,’ said Maria quickly, for she was anxious to get over the difficult moment as soon as possible.

‘Presently,’ answered Montalto. ‘I have one or two things to say while we are alone. First, as to your friends, I wish you to understand that even if there are some whom I do not know, they shall all be welcome here. They will be the more welcome because they stood by my wife when she was in trouble.’

He put a little emphasis on the words, his figure had straightened and he held his head high. She understood the great generosity of what he said.

‘Thank you, Diego,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You are very good.’

‘There is only one person who shall not come here,’ he continued, in a tone that was suddenly hard.

Maria almost started, but controlled herself; he could only mean Castiglione.

‘Who is it?’ she asked, as steadily as she could.

‘Teresa Crescenzi,’ answered Montalto, turning rather sharply. ‘I beg you never to receive her. She spoke against my mother, and I will not have her in the house.’

Maria actually laughed, though a little nervously.

‘She is no friend of mine,’ she said. ‘I do not care to see her.’

‘You need not quarrel with her, my dear, if you meet. I shall take the responsibility on myself, and I shall be careful to let her know that it is I who forbid her my house.’

He was not a short man, and when he drew himself up he looked tall. Maria no longer felt that she could throw him to the floor if he took her hand.

‘I have not many real friends here now,’ he said, more gently. ‘One whom I especially esteem is Monsignor Saracinesca. Do you ever see him?’

‘I saw him not long ago, and I sometimes meet him at his father’s house. We are on good terms.’

‘That is very pleasant,’ Montalto answered. ‘I shall often ask him here, if you do not object.’

‘I shall always be glad to see him,’ returned Maria. ‘But, please, Diego, do not consult me about such things. I am very deeply conscious of your generosity in all ways, and this house is yours, not mine.’

‘It is ours,’ said Montalto, ‘except for Teresa Crescenzi. I do not wish you to think of it in any other way. And that brings me to the last point. May I inquire whether you have found yourself in any—how shall I say?—in any financial straits in which my fortune can be of service to you?’

You may judge a man of the world’s wisdom by the sort of wife he chooses, but the test of a gentleman is the way he treats his wife. Maria was profoundly touched by her husband’s question. She rose from her seat and went close to him, overcoming her repulsion easily for the moment as she took his hand and spoke.

‘No, I have made no debts. But I have no words to thank you for your kindness. I shall try to deserve it.’

‘It is only what I owe to my wife,’ Montalto answered, and he bent over her hand with as much ceremony as if there had been twenty people in the room.

‘I have something to tell you, too,’ she said. ‘You ought to know it. Baldassare del Castiglione has come back to Rome. We have met alone, and we have agreed never to see each other again—except as we may chance to find ourselves in a friend’s house at the same time.’

Montalto could not help dropping her hand as soon as she pronounced Castiglione’s name, but his face changed little.

‘I daresay you were wise to see him once,’ he replied, a trifle coldly. ‘We need not refer to him again.’

She could not have expected more than that, but when he had answered she was a little sorry that she had spoken at all. He would willingly have trusted her without that explanation.

With an evident wish to change the subject, he began to ask questions about the apartment, inquiring how she liked it, and whether she had found Schmidt efficient in carrying out her wishes.

‘Very,’ she answered to the last question. ‘He is a wonderful man.’

‘Yes,’ Montalto assented coldly, ‘in some ways he is an extraordinary young man.’

There was something more reserved in the tone than in the words, but Maria was very far from being intimate enough with her husband yet to ask whether Schmidt had any fault or weakness that justified his master’s evident doubts about him. She wondered what the trouble might be.

‘Shall we go and see Leone now?’ Montalto suggested. ‘On the way you can show me what you have done to the house. You have not ruined me in furniture,’ he added with a smile, as he looked round the rather empty drawing-room.

‘I left as much as possible to you,’ Maria answered.

She was thinking of Leone, and she already saw before her the sturdy little blue-eyed boy with his thick and short brown hair. They went on through the house to the door of Maria’s boudoir, at the end of the great ball-room.

‘That is where I have installed myself,’ she said, pointing to it and turning to the left, towards the masked door that led to the living rooms in the other wing.

‘Yes, I remember,’ answered Montalto. ‘And this is your dressing-room, I suppose,’ he added as they walked on. ‘And this used to be your bedroom.’

‘Yes,’ said Maria steadily. ‘That is the door of my bedroom.’

Leone’s was the next, and in a moment they were standing in a flood of afternoon light, and Maria bent down and kissed the small boy’s hair because he would not turn up his cheek to her, being very intent on examining Montalto’s face. But Maria dared not look at her husband just then.

‘Here we are at last, dear,’ she said as well as she could, still bending over him.

To some extent she could trust the child’s manners, for she had brought him up herself, but her heart beat fast during the little silence before Montalto spoke, and she wondered what his tone would be much more than what he was going to say, for she felt sure that the words would not be unkind.

Montalto held out his hand, and Leone took it slowly. He had never been kissed by a man, and did not imagine that his newly-introduced papa could be expected to kiss him. This was fortunate, for Montalto had not the least intention of doing so.

‘Can you ride yet?’ he asked, with a smile.

‘No,’ Leone answered, but his face changed instantly. ‘Not yet.’

‘I will teach you, my boy, and as soon as you can trot and gallop nicely you shall have a good horse of your own.’

Leone flushed with pleasure, a healthy red that was good to see.

‘Oh, how splendid!’ he cried, and his blue eyes lit up with happiness. ‘Really, really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘When shall I begin?’

‘To-morrow morning.’

‘Hurrah!’ yelled the small boy. ‘At last!’

Maria could have cried out too, or laughed, or burst into tears from sheer relief. Montalto had unconsciously received one of those happy inspirations which turn the mingling currents of meeting lives; and Leone was already astride of a stick, prancing round the room on an imaginary horse, shouting out the tune of the Italian royal march and sabring the air to right and left with the first thing he happened to pick up. It chanced to be the tooth-brush with which he had been polishing his tin gun.

Montalto looked pleased, and Leone pranced towards him on the stick and pretended to rein in a fiery steed before his papa, saluting with the tooth-brush sabre in correct cavalry fashion.

‘Viva Papa!’ he bawled. ‘Viva Papa!’

Montalto, who rarely smiled, could not help laughing now. Maria could hardly believe her senses, for she had dreaded most of all moments the one in which the two were to meet. But now her husband suddenly looked younger. He was thin, indeed, to the verge of emaciation, his hands were shrunken and transparent, his beard was quite grey, his eyes were hollow; but there was no feverish fire in them, his face was not colourless, and there was life in his movements. Maria wondered whether it were humanly possible that he should not only be kind to her child but should actually like him, and perhaps love him some day.

At all events what had happened had made it easier for her than she had dared to expect, and though nothing could efface the painful impression of her meeting with him, what had now taken place certainly made a great difference.

During dinner he talked quietly about Rome and politics and old friends, and if she saw his eyes fixed upon her now and then with an expression that made her nervous, there was still the broad table between them, and he looked away almost directly.

Afterwards he smoked Spanish cigarettes, taking them to pieces and rolling them again in thin French paper, and he went on talking; but as the hour advanced he said less and less, and his cigarette went out very often, till at last he rose, saying that it was late, and he kissed her hand ceremoniously and left her.

‘Good-night,’ she said, just before he disappeared through the door.

He bent his head a little but did not answer.

An hour later she had dismissed her maid and sat in a small easy-chair in her boudoir under a shaded light; she was trying to read, in the hope of growing sleepy. She wore a thin silk dressing-gown, wide open at the throat and showing a little simple white lace; her dark hair was taken up in a loose knot rather low down at the back of her neck, as she had always done it at bedtime ever since she had been a young girl. Her bare feet were half hidden in a pair of rather shabby little grey velvet slippers without heel or heel-piece, for the spring night was warm. She was trying to read.

She thought some one knocked softly at the door; she started in her chair and dropped the book, while her hand went up to her throat to gather the silk folds and hide the lace underneath. She could not speak.

Another knock, quite distinct this time, and followed by a question in her husband’s voice.

‘May I come in?’

An instant’s pause, and she closed her eyes to say two words.

‘Come in.’