One evening, however, they were walking alone together towards Acqua Acetosa. Making a short cut to the Viale della Regina, they crossed certain narrow lanes beyond Porta Salaria, and Regina suddenly stopped before an osteria (tavern).

A bright interior was visible through an open doorway. At the far end of the room was a glass window coloured by the declining sun, and against this luminous background passed and re-passed, light-footed and black, a couple of dancers, dancing to the strains of a husky concertina. A girl, pale and thin, but bright-eyed, was seated by the door, her arm on the corner of a table, her fair hair mixing in with the shining background. She was something like Gabrie, and dressed like her in a pink blouse. For a moment Regina thought it was she.

"Why, look! there's Gabrie!"

"So it is," replied Antonio.

They drew nearer. The girl got up, thinking them customers. She was half-a-foot taller than Gabrie. The couple went on dancing, black and light against the orange brilliance of the window, and Regina and Antonio passed on. They were speaking of Gabrie. From that instant Regina felt a vague perturbation; but she had no idea of beginning a hateful discussion. She said, almost involuntarily—

"One of these days I mean to bring that poor girl with us. I hardly ever see her, but I do so pity her. She coughs incessantly."

"She is a poor thing; consumptive, I fancy," said Antonio. "You shouldn't let her kiss Caterina. But why is it you don't see her?"

"Because she's ill-natured. She does nothing but observe people and take away their characters."

By force of old habit, Antonio held Regina's hand in his as they walked. Before them spread the Viale. Visions of depths of the Campagna, vivid in its pure spring green, appeared in the distance to right and left through the motionless plane-trees, against a pearl-grey sky shot with colours from the sinking sun. The gardens were overrun with roses and lilies, whose fragrance mingled with the scent of herbs and of strawberries. Now and then a carriage went by and vanished into the distance of the deserted Viale.

"Who was it told me the same thing of Gabrie?" asked Antonio.

"Marianna, perhaps?" suggested Regina, sharply.

"I believe it was."

"She's just the same herself. One's no better than the other; that's what makes them friends."

"Oh, there's no one like Marianna," said Antonio, and looked away into the distance.

Then, in one second, flashing and following each other like lightning, a succession of ideas started up in Regina's mind. She would have snatched her hand from Antonio, but fancied he might guess her thoughts from the action, and she stiffened herself to endure the contact. She stiffened in appearance, but her heart was beating violently, two, three, ten, many strokes;—the hour had come!

It seemed to her that some one, some mysterious being, black in the sunset brilliance, had passed by smiting her heart with a hammer. And her heart awaked from the evil stupor of the long oppression. Now she could arise, shake herself, walk; walk, breathe, cry aloud; live, and make a supreme effort to rid herself of the shadow, of the weight of the incubus—or else she must fall again under that weight, under that black shadow, and must die.

From day to day Regina had expected this hour of conflict, yet from day to day she had put it from her like a bitter cup.

Now it had come, and she felt a mysterious fear. Again she would have wished to put it off; but a strange impulse, what seemed an instinct of self-preservation superior to her will, clutched her and forced her to speak.

She remembered none of the words prepared for weeks and months; only Antonio's sentence about Marianna gave her a thread to which she clung desperately, as to a thread which would guide her out of the dark labyrinth.

She had turned and turned in the maze of the evil dream, but she had come back to the precise point where she had stood on the day of the catastrophe.

"No," she began, in a toneless voice; "you cannot guess how malignant Gabrie is. Oh, much more than Marianna! Marianna sees, and sometimes at least says nothing. But Gabrie——If you can bear it, I will tell you something, Antonio."

He turned round and looked at her. She looked at him. It seemed as if for that moment they understood each other without more words. However, she went on.

"You will be patient?"

He looked straight before him, indifferent, too indifferent.

"Go on."

"Gabrie says you are Madame Makuline's lover."

He reddened. Anger deformed his face. He dropped Regina's hand and flung it from him, opening his lips with gestures of astonishment and wrath.

"She said that to you?" he cried.

His voice resounded in the silence of the road.

"She told me, yes."

He stood still. Regina stood still. Her heart beat. His hands, hanging down, groped as if trying to lay hold of something. The gesture is customary with actors at the dramatic moments of their part. Regina feared that Antonio acted his part too well. Then she thought, forcing herself to be just—

"If he is innocent, it's natural he should be upset."

"And you, you——" he burst out, "did not strike her? You actually thought of bringing her with us to-day!"

"Antonio," exclaimed Regina, looking at him with feigned surprise, "you promised to be patient!"

"But it's abominable!" he said, lifting his hands. "How do you suppose I can be patient? If you are joking let me tell you it's a hideous joke. If what you tell me is serious, I am astounded at your calm."

His face paled rapidly as it had flushed, but it paled too much; it became almost grey.

Regina did not move an eyelash, so narrowly she was watching him. She saw that his agitation was real, but she did not know, could not find out, its precise cause. For some moments, however, the strong desire that Antonio should not belie his indignation induced in her a wave of joy. She abandoned herself to it. It was not mere desire, it was certainty of having been deceived! Yet—an inexplicable thing happened; the hope of having been deceived did not restore her kindness. She became cynical—cruel.

"Come!" she said, with bitter gaiety, "why should I be angry? why should I strike Gabrie? Suppose she had told me the truth? Let's walk on," she added, trying to take his arm again.

But he repulsed her, and remained standing.

"Let me alone! What do you mean by the truth?"

"The fact that every one believes it, without daring to tell me, as she dared——"

"Every one believes it? But—Regina, do you believe it?"

"I also!"

"Listen to me," he said, indignant again, but with an indignation different from the first—deeper, more scornful—"listen to me! Are you not ashamed of yourself?"

"Walk on," she said moving, but not trying to take his arm this time; "don't let us make a scene in the middle of the street."

And she walked on, blind, all involved again in the fearful shadow from which she had thought herself freed. The momentary hope was over. Why? She did not know. Can one know why the sky becomes suddenly covered with cloud?

Antonio's attitude was that of a man who is offended. He followed her scarcely a step behind, and repeated, mechanically—

"You ought to be ashamed——"

She was no longer able to abandon herself to her ardent desire of believing him innocent. She could not!—could not!

"Every one believes it?" repeated Antonio, walking by her side, but not touching her. "And you tell me in this way, in the street, suddenly, as if it were a joke! And you, you believe it yourself! And you speak of it like this!"

"How would you have me speak of it?"

"At least you should have spoken sooner."

"Perhaps I heard it to-day, a little while ago, for the first time."

"That's impossible! You were too calm a little while ago!"

"One can pretend," she said, with a forced smile, which furrowed her cheek like a sign of pain.

"A little while ago?" he repeated, closing his hand and shaking it on a level with her face. "Then why do you say every one believes it? Have you just learned that too? Did you hear it from that—that—I don't know what to call her—there is no word——And you—you aren't ashamed to demean yourself to such scandal-mongering with a creature like that, a degenerate——You——" he continued, forcing himself to scorn, "you, the superior woman, the exceptional fastidious woman, the great lady—the great lady!" he repeated, raising and coarsening his voice.

Then Regina fired up. Sombre redness made her face from forehead to chin a circle of fire; in their turn her hands were agitated in tragic gesticulation.

"Antonio, hush!" she said, not looking at him. "What do you expect? Life is like that—stupid and vulgar. The most horrible things are revealed by the gossip of silly women, and whole dramas are played on the high road in the course of an evening walk. It wouldn't do if that happened in a novel! The author would be accused of vulgarity, if not of nonsense. In real life, on the contrary, see what happens. The grand lady goes to a garret in Via San Lorenzo to discover the cause of her unhappiness; the superior woman comes out into the street to——"

"Regina, have done! have done!" cried Antonio. "You reason too much and too coldly for you to believe what you are saying. No, it is not true! You do not believe it! Tell me you don't believe it!"

And he tried to take her arm, but this time it was she who repulsed him.

"Let me alone! That is what you men are! If I had been another woman, another sort of wife, I should have lain in wait for you at home, like a tigress in her lair. I should have made a scene, one of those scenes called strong, which are so pleasing at the theatre or in a novel. Whereas, I have spoken to you quite quietly. I repeat a thing which every one is saying, and I ask nothing better than that we should laugh at it together. But you—you begin with noisy words, 'aren't you ashamed,' and 'scandal-mongering,' and 'the great lady.' Yes, certainly, I am a lady; more of a lady than those other women. It is just that I don't value conventionalities; that is the calamity."

"Then would you prefer me to be silent? Is that it? Don't torment me like this, Regina! In my opinion it would have been better to have this scene at home. Well, your jealousy is the last straw——"

Regina laughed. Her laugh was genuine but strident, hoarse, as if proceeding out of rusty iron.

"My dear, you are raving! Jealousy! Come, not that!"

"Why did you say you believed it?"

"Did I say so? Surely not."

"I tell you, you did say it."

"I said I believed people believed it."

"I don't think so," he protested. "Well, 'people' are always malicious."

"That, at any rate, is true. People are malicious. You see, our position has changed; we are living comfortably in spite of our slender income, so at once people hatch a scandal. The very excuse you make that you have become a speculator just now, when you might have been one all along——"

"That is absurd!" interrupted Antonio. "I was a bachelor before, and had more money than I knew what to do with. Besides, you are supposed to have money of your own. No one knows that I began speculating by a mere chance——"

"What has all this to do with it? The world has no need to know our affairs. Chance!" she repeated, her face darkening as she remembered the "chance" in which she had so childishly believed, while instinct had warned her of fiction, fiction clever but thin, like the invention in a novelette.

"What do you mean?" she went on, reassailed by a stifling wave of rage and suspicion. "The world is malicious just because every day, every hour, these strange chances are happening. You know the background of life better than I do. Shame upon shame! How often have you not yourself pointed out to me smart young men who are living on their mistresses?"

Antonio made no answer, and she continued—

"So I said to myself, 'The appearance itself that we are not living merely on our fixed income, the excuse that you play, and have capital at your disposal in result of a game where, as at every game, one sometimes wins but sometimes loses, or the excuse that you are that woman's agent—confidential servant—all that has given rise to suspicion.' What do you expect?" she repeated for the third time. "The world is malicious. We—you—are seen for ever going to that house. Everything is seen, commented on, suspected. Your own relations—do you think your own relations have no doubts, make no allusions? Why, a few days ago Claretta——"

Having reached this point Regina became alarmed and silent. She felt herself saying things untrue, giving form to the phantasms of her suspicions. She had no wish to deceive. She wanted the truth. Was she to seek it with lies? No; the truth must be sought with truth. This was her desire, but she was unequal to achieving it. As during their nocturnal walk along the Po, that evening of Antonio's arrival, so now she felt a veil suspended between them. They saw, but could not touch each other—so near were they, yet so far, separated by the black veil of lies. Why continue this conversation woven of deceits? Words, words! Cold, vain, vulgar words! The truth was in silence, or at least in those words which the lying lips were unable to shape. Regina reflected—

"If I dare not speak my real thought, I who have nothing shameful to conceal, how can he speak his? It is useless to insist. He will not confess. None the less, we may come to an understanding. I will say to him, 'Let us go back to living modestly as we did at first. Let us break off all relation with that woman, and it will shut people's mouths.' He will understand. He will return to me purified by my silent pardon, by my delicacy. And it will be all over. How is it I never had this happy thought before?"

But she had no sooner formulated the "happy thought" than it seemed to her just one of her usual romantic ideas—a phantasy on a pleasant walk at sundown, along the paths of a spring landscape. Life was a different matter! Reality, naked and ugly, but at least sincere, was a different matter!—like an ugly woman who makes no effort to deceive any one. Away, away with every veil! away with each stained garment! They must listen to each other; they must rend every disguise, even if it were generous and of the ideal.

While she was hurriedly weighing these thoughts in her mind, Antonio interrupted—

"And you knew all this and said nothing? Why did you say nothing? I can't make it out. Certain things have become clear—your ill-humour, your hints and insinuations, your obstinacy in not coming to Albano. But I cannot comprehend your silence. Ah! how hideous all this is! Hideous! Hideous! Certainly the world is malicious; its malice would be monstrous if it weren't ridiculous! We needn't pay attention to it! You are right; in a city like Rome, where anything seems possible, and nobody believes what is said——"

"No, we must pay attention to it," said Regina; "just because in a city like Rome anything seems possible. It mayn't matter so much to me, but suppose the calumny should reach the ears of my mother, down there in that corner of a province, where the smallest things seem gigantic! My mother has had great sorrows, but none of them could equal this."

"And do you suppose my mother wouldn't care just as much?" interrupted Antonio, piqued.

"No doubt she would. But it's for you to consider your mother, I mine! However, it shows you that even at Rome one must heed the clatter of tongues. If it were only you and I in face of that clawing animal, the world, I'd laugh at it. But, my dear, we aren't alone! Caterina will grow up. And if she were to know——"

At this he gave a cry almost wild.

"If she were to know! But has it been my fault?"

Again Regina felt as if a stone had struck her full in the face. Yes; if there was fault, it came home to herself! She was the mother of the evil which was stifling them. Antonio's cry was one not of defence, but of accusation.

She rebelled against it.

"I admit," she said, "the fault is not entirely yours. But neither is it all mine."

"Who's saying the fault is yours?"

"I have said it to myself a thousand times. Antonio, there is no reproach that I have not made to myself. How often have I not groaned, 'If I had not been guilty of that lightness of which I was guilty, Antonio would not have forced himself to change our position. He would not have become that woman's servant, not——'"

"You said it to yourself a thousand times?" he interrupted. "Do you mean you have been thinking of this for a long while? Why did you not first speak to me? Why? Why? That's what I require to know!"

"Oh, don't get angry again!" prayed Regina. "Why didn't I tell you? Because I didn't believe it."

"Do you mean you do believe it now? And that you waited to tell me till exactly now, to-day, at this moment?"

"I waited for an opportunity——"

"Nonsense! There was no lack of opportunities—worse ones even than this!"

"I repeat I don't study conventionality. Another woman would have made a scene, conjured you sentimentally to swear the truth on the head of our child. I don't do such things. Once only I was betrayed into a piece of dramatic nonsense. Once was enough!"

"What has this to do with it?" he said, angrily. "You could have spoken just as you are speaking now. Well, speak on. Say again what you said a minute ago. You said that you reproached yourself a thousand times as having been the cause of this—calumny. What did you mean?"

"You aren't listening. I reproached myself for having involuntarily given birth to this calumny, by constraining you to become that woman's slave. It was natural people should be suspicious. They are suspicious also of men much richer and much less attractive than you. Madame got rid of the others, Cavaliere R—— and Signor S——, to make a place for you. Naturally, those men spoke ill of you. Probably they started it. However," she continued, returning to her first point, "remember, Antonio, that I repented of my caprice. Remember well. I gave up all my pretensions and follies and came home to you because I had at last understood that your love was all I required for happiness."

"You said so, I know. But I didn't believe you. You said it because you pitied me. I didn't want your pity, Regina!" he went on, drawing a deep breath, as if struggling with a sob. "Now it is I who am playing the sentimental part, saying that you had humiliated me overmuch because I—had not tried to content you. Shall I follow your lead and say I am not like other men? Better or worse—who knows? I don't set up to be superior, as you do" (his voice shook with angry grief). "I'll call myself inferior, yes—a little bourgeois! How often have you not thrown that in my teeth! But for that very reason——What was I saying?"

Regina, overwhelmed herself by a strange mingling of grief and contempt, replied ironically—

"You were saying that we are two beings unlike the rest of the world, a hero and heroine of romance, in fact. Perhaps some day Gabrie will pick us up, as one picks mushrooms!"

"At this moment, with your scornful superiority, you are a poisonous mushroom!"

Regina had been staring straight before her, with eyes lost in the luminous distance. Now she turned to look at him, ready to make a bitter reply. But she saw his face so grey and miserable she did not venture to speak. What, moreover, could she say? Why continue vainly to beat about the bush, talking of the edifice of their error, without daring to penetrate within it?

Antonio went on—

"Yes, you had humiliated me overmuch! I must say it to you once straight out. After reading your letter I would have committed any crime only to free myself from the insulting weight of your reproaches. It was driving me mad. It was a degrading accusation which you had brought against me! And I wanted to get you back—as much out of pride as passion! To get you back, not by force, not by love, but by money. That was my obsession. Money—money at all costs! So I went and gambled. And I took the post which I did not particularly admire. I offered myself to Madame. That was my crime, because now I recognise that Cavaliere R—— was only doing precisely what I did myself a little later."

Regina listened and was silent, but she shook her head. He was lying, still lying. He was accusing himself of venial errors to make her believe him innocent of his real sin. Lies—always lies; and yet——

"I thought you had perhaps repented and would come home; but by this time I knew you! Your letter, your manner, had revealed your character. You would come home to live with me, perhaps resigned, perhaps not, but certainly unhappy. And I was ready to give my blood to prevent that! I wanted you happy. I loved you, Regina, just for your pretensions, which proved you the delicate, fastidious creature, above me by birth and by breeding. Who, you say, can know the dark secrets of his own heart? In a few days I had become another man. I dared to improve my position. I succeeded. And now you blame me for what I have done for you—only for you!"

Regina made no answer. He also kept silence, perhaps thinking her convinced. They went on a little way. A light-haired man, dressed like a Protestant minister, had come up with them, and walked by their side. Carts, laden with bottles, passed, and carriages going to Acqua Acetosa.

Regina thought—

"He doesn't want my pity. He was driven mad by humiliation! I see. Perhaps he thought I should come home only to torment him, and that presently I should desert him again. And I am still trying to persuade myself he is innocent, while he doesn't even know how to keep up the lie! Yet he has been lying for two years, every day, every hour, every minute. How, how has he been able to do it? Well, and wasn't I brooding over my project of flight secretly for days and for months? Was not that also treason? And are we not both lying now? Why all these vain words, these sous-entendus, if we are not each in turn trying to deceive the other? What is he thinking at this moment? What do I know of his soul, or he of mine? We have always mistaken each other, and we mistake more than ever at this moment. No, we do not know each other. We are more of strangers to one another than to that man passing along at our side. We have shared our bed and our board, we have a child, part of ourselves, and yet we are strangers! We are enemies—we offend each other; each in our turn, we hide that we may wound deeper!"

"Shall we go back by Ponte Molle, or by the way we went the last day?" asked Antonio.

"There might be a carriage down there, perhaps?" said Regina.

"To go back!" she thought, in profound desolation. "To take up our life of deception and shame! No, I will not! I will not! It must not go on!"

And at last she felt the courage to bring in the end that very day.

Her resolution calmed her. She seemed to lift her head, to open her eyes, to see again round her the beauties of Nature, the purifier. Just here the road broadened out. Never had she seen the Campagna so beautiful, so splendidly and magically coloured. It seemed a picture by a luminist painter—a green landscape with detached pines waving against the dazzling background of crimson and gold, an exaggeration of light, in whose intensity the figures of the passers-by, the half-naked vendors of the spa water, the mounted soldiers, the beggars lying in wait at the cross roads, stood out like bronze statues.

Regina had taken her resolution, but at the cross roads it sufficed her to note the angry movement with which Antonio flung a coin to the beggars to understand that her husband was still offended, and to revive her forlorn hope of his innocence.

They took the short cut. Up and down, up and down by a little path, dark, fragrant, part warm grass, part sand. The Protestant pastor, who seemed uncertain of the way, followed them.

The sun was sinking, silver on the gold horizon; over the flushed grass, the shadows of the pines grew long; the eastern sky took opaque tones—the ashy violet of a pastel. For a moment Regina could have believed herself in the mountains. She could see no more than the path mounting through grass to the low summit, all green against the luminous void. Up and up! The free breath of spring restored the natural colour to Antonio's face. Spring is intolerant of ugly people. The countenance of the fair young minister became like a pink peony, scarcely opened.

But here they were at the low summit, and from it appeared the azure vision of the real mountains.

That day the picture of the Acqua Acetosa had a character almost biblical. Men were sleeping on the grass beside their carts, in which the load of flasks sparkled in the sun; women, children, many dogs, a little black donkey, were all so still as to seem painted on the green background of the Tiber; a line of scarce distinguishable sheep were coming down to the river to drink; boats rocked softly among the bushes of the bank. A soft breeze diffused the perfume of the flowering elders.

While Antonio and Regina were descending the steps cut out on the hillside, a carriage arrived laden with five foreign ladies wearing the usual impossible little hats made of one ear of corn, a poppy, and a bunch of gauze. The lady who got out last began a dispute with the driver.

"Everywhere these horrible foreigners!" said Regina, nervously, and let Antonio go down to the fountain by himself.

She made her way to the river-bank, far up beyond the excise official's hut. He was walking about before the tavern, and the point to which Regina advanced remained completely solitary. Low noises reached her, overpowered by the song of the larks and the music of a streamlet gurgling at the bottom of a cleft near by. In the hedge leaves rustled like the frou-frou of silk, and the elder-flowers, already over-blown but still sweet and rosy in the sun, leaned forward as if to listen to the gurgle of the water. Beyond the cleft a mass of greyish flowers covered the declivity; below the Tiber rolled on, clear, calm, imperial. The reflection of the setting sun crossed an angle of the river, making an enormous, trembling, fiery serpent across the water, which seemed brought to a halt on its incandescent back. Sparkles of gold caught fire, went out, and lighted up again, swiftly, irrepressibly, where the reflection of the sun terminated. Everything suggested the illusion of a fight between the water and the raging fire in the river's depths. Far off, where the sky grew pale, the water had conquered and was already spreading the solemn sadness of its ashy calm.

Of course Regina thought of her own distant river. She sat on the rough grass of the declivity and waited.

Never had she felt quieter and stronger than at that hour. As over the river so over her soul, ashy calm was advancing, subduing the vain fire of passion. An old thought started afresh into her mind.

"Every hour will come. This one has come, and others, and others are on their way, and at last the hour of death. Why do we torment ourselves? My life and Antonio's from henceforth will be like a faded garment; yes, like this——!" she said, drawing round her feet the edge of her white but soiled dress. "Well? that means that we shall wear it more contemptuously, but also more comfortably, without considering it so much—thus!" she cried aloud, casting her skirt's hem away from her, over the rough, sand-covered grass.

She looked if Antonio were coming. For some moments he had been speaking with the owners of the five little hats. Then Regina saw him take them down, down, as far as to one of the boats moored at the bank. The boatman ran up, spoke with Antonio, and presently the boat laden with the five little hats was on her way to Ponte Molle.

Then Antonio looked round for his wife and came to her with his swift, light step.

"I put them in the boat partly that we might get their carriage," he said, throwing himself on the grass at her side. "I hope I haven't made you jealous, Regina, now you've begun at it!"

His voice was gay; too gay.

"On the contrary, I hope I have done with it," she said coldly. "If you have no objection, we will speak further and end the matter."

"Oh, I knew we'd have to go on! Well, speak!" he said, kicking at a branch of elder. "To begin with, tell me what were the allusions, the insinuations made by my cousin—by my relations—by every one, in fact—as a treat——"

Regina watched the nervous movement of Antonio's hand. Her eyes had again become sweet, soft, child-like, but with the sweetness of childish eyes when they are sad.

"Listen, dear," she began, and her voice also was sweet but sad; "don't let us fall into scandal-mongering. If the thing isn't true, what does it matter? If it is true——"

"If it were true——" he interrupted, raising his head, while his hand still shook. Regina was silent not looking up. "What would you do? Would you leave me again?"

She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully.

"If it is true. Then you are still supposing it! Ah, that's what I cannot endure, Regina! It means you don't believe me. It means the malicious words of some stranger have more value for you than mine!"

She was tempted to reply, "And are not you a stranger to me?" but dared not yet.

"Yes, yes! I see that's what it is!" he went on, despairingly. "Now this suspicion has got into your head, now, now you believe me no longer! But I hope to cure you, see! I hope. Begin by telling me everything. You ought to tell me, you ought, do you hear? It concerns your honour—everybody's honour. Tell me! tell me!"

She shook her head.

"What is the use?"

"Tell me all," he commanded. "There's a limit to my patience also!"

"Don't raise your voice, Antonio! The excise officer is there. Don't be so small!"

"Have done with your own smallness! I am small; yes, I'm small, and that's just the reason why I want to know! You see, you are driving me mad! Tell me! I insist."

Regina turned and looked at him. Her eyes, large and melancholy, sparkled in the reflection of the sunset. Never had Antonio seen them more beautiful, sweeter, deeper. At that moment he was overpowered by some sort of fascination and could not turn away from those eyes, burning and sad like the dying sun. Regina said—

"And when I shall have told you everything you want to know, what will you do? How will you know, how do I know, if the things I have heard are or are not real illusions, evil surmises? or whether the doubt has not come of my own instinct?"

"But a few minutes ago you said you didn't believe it! I don't understand you, Regina!"

"And I, do I understand you? Can we understand each other? Think, Antonio, think. Have we ever understood each other? How do I know you speak the truth? How do you know I speak the truth? Look," she said, stretching her hand towards the Tiber; "we seem near to each other, while, on the contrary, we are distant as the banks of this river, which for ever gaze at each other, but will never come into touch!"

"For pity's sake, finish it!" he said, bitterly, but supplicatingly and humbly. "Be merciful, my dear, and don't torment me. Don't say these horrible things. It's very possible I don't understand you, but you, you ought to understand me. Let us discuss, let us see together what is to be done. I—I will do whatever you wish. Haven't I always done so? Am I not good to you? Do you say I am not good to you? Tell me what I am to do, but don't doubt me! It's the last straw. If we lose our peace, our concord, what is there left for us?"

He spoke softly, humbly, almost sweetly, but with that sweetness one employs towards a sick and fractious child. He took her hand and laid it on his knee, and on it he laid his own. Regina felt his hand pulsing and vibrating, but its fondness no longer had power to stir her blood.

Yes, it was undeniable. He had always done her will. He was the weak one, and this was at once his crime and his defence. Yes, he was kind, too kind. He had given her in sacrifice not his spirit only, but his body; this miserable mortal flesh he had sold for her. He had given her all; he would still give her all. In a moment, if she demanded it of him, he would confess his shame. How could she have doubted it? Then she told him the whole story.

"Listen. One day I went to see Gabrie, who had been ill——"