PART II

I.

Anna wore a pink dressing-gown of soft wool, with a low-cut sailor's collar and monk's-sleeves, so that her throat and wrists, round and pale with the warm pallor of ivory, were left uncovered. Her hair was drawn up in a rich mass on the top of her head, and confined by two or three pins of yellow tortoise-shell. Her black eyes were radiant with youth and love.

She opened the door of her room.

She had a little clock in a case of blue velvet lightly ornamented with silver; Cesare had given it to her during their honeymoon, and she always kept it by her. She looked at this, and saw that it was already eleven. The April sunshine poured merrily into the room, brightening the light colours of the upholsteries, touching with fire her bronze jewel-case, her hanging lamp of ancient Venetian wrought iron, and the silver frame of her looking-glass, and giving life to the blue forget-me-nots on the white ground of her carpet.

It was eleven. And from the other end of the apartment (where, with Stella Martini she occupied two or three rooms) Laura had sent to ask at what hour they were to start for the Campo di Marte. Anna had told the servant to answer that they would start soon after noon, and that she was getting ready.

For a moment she stood still in the middle of her room, undecided whether or not to move in the direction that her feet seemed inclined to take of their own will--pretty little feet, in black slippers embroidered with pearls.

Then she opened the door.

A short passage separated her room from her husband's. Her husband's room had a second door, letting into a small hall, whence he could leave the house without Anna's knowing it, without her hearing so much as a footstep.

She crossed the passage slowly, and leaned against the door, not to listen, but as if she lacked courage to knock. At last, very softly, she gave two quick raps with her knuckles.

There was a minute of silence.

She would never have dared to knock a second time, already penitent for having ventured to disturb her lord and master.

A cold quiet voice from within inquired, "Who is it?"

"It's I, Cesare," she said, bending down, as if to send the words through the keyhole.

"Wait a moment, please."

Patiently, with her bejewelled hand on the knob, and the train of her pink dressing-gown heaped about her feet, she waited. He never allowed her to come in at once, when she knocked at his door, he seemed to take a pleasure in prolonging and subduing her impatience.

Presently he opened the door. He was already dressed for the Campo di Marte, in the appropriate costume of a lover of horse-racing.

"Ah, my dear lady," he said, bowing with that fine gallantry which he always showed to women, "aren't you dressed yet?"

And as he spoke he looked at her with admiring eyes. She was so young and fresh, and living, with her beautiful round throat, her flower-like arms issuing from her wide monk's sleeves, and her tiny feet in their black slippers, that he took her hand, drew her to him, and kissed her on the lips. A single kiss; but her eyes lightened softly, and her red lips remained parted.

He stretched himself in an easy-chair, near his writing-desk, and puffed a cigarette. All the solid and simple yet elegant furniture of the big room which he occupied, was impregnated with that odour of tobacco, which solitary smokers create round themselves like an atmosphere.

Anna sat down, balancing herself on the arm of a chair covered with Spanish leather. One of her feet played with the train of her gown. She looked about, marvelling as she always did, at the vast room a little bleak with its olive plush, its arms, its bookcase, its handful of books in brown bindings, and here and there a bit of carved ivory or a bright-coloured neck-tie, and everywhere the smell of cigarette-smoke. His bed was long and narrow, with a head-piece of carved wood; its coverlet of old brocade fell to the floor in folds, and mixed itself with the antique Smyrna carpets that Cesare Dias had brought home from a journey in the East. Attached to the brown head-piece there was a big ivory crucifix, a specimen of Cinquecento sculpture, yellow with age. The whole room had a certain severe appearance, as if here the gallant man of the world gave himself to solitary and austere reflections, while his conscience took the upper hand and reminded him of the seriousness of life.

The big drawers of his writing desk surely contained many deep and strange secrets. Anna had often looked at them with burning, eager eyes, the eyes of one anxious to penetrate the essence of things; but she had never approached them, fearing their mysteries. Only, every day, after breakfast, when her husband was away, she had put a bunch of fresh, fragrant flowers in a vase of Satsuma, whose yellow surface was crossed by threads of gold, and placed them on the dark old desk, which thereby gained a quality of youth and poetry. He treated the flowers with characteristic indifference. Now and then he would wear one of them in his button-hole; oftener he seemed unconscious of their existence. For a week at a time jonquils would follow violets and roses would take the place of mignonette in the Satsuma vase, but Cesare would not deign to give them a look. This morning, though, he had a tea-rose bud in his button-hole, a slightly faded one that he had plucked from the accustomed nosegay; and Anna smiled at seeing it there.

"At what time are we going to the races?" she asked, remembering the business that had brought her to his room.

"In about an hour," he answered, looking up from a memorandum-book in which he was setting down certain figures with a pencil.

"You are coming with us, aren't you?"

"Yes. And yet--we shall look like a Noah's ark. Perhaps I'd better go with Giulio on the four-in-hand."

"No, no; come with us. When we are there you can go where you like."

"Naturally," he said, making another entry in his note-book.

She looked at him with shining eyes; but he continued his calculations, and paid her no attention. Only presently he asked:

"Aren't you going to dress?"

"Yes, yes," she answered softly.

And slowly she went away.

While her maid was helping her to put on her English costume of nut-coloured wool, she was wondering whether her husband would like it; she never dared to ask him what his tastes were in such matters; she tried to divine them. Before dressing, she secured round her throat by a chain an antique silver reliquary, which enclosed, however, instead of the relics of a saint, the only love letters that he had ever written to her, two little notes that had given her unspeakable pain when she had received them. And as she moved about her room at her toilet, she cast repeated glances at his portrait, which hung over her writing-table. Round her right arm she wore six little golden bracelets with pearls suspended from them; and graven upon each bracelet was one letter of his name, Cesare. Her right hand gleamed with many rings set with precious stones; but on her left hand her wedding-ring shone alone.

When she had adjusted her veil over her English felt hat, trimmed with swallows' wings, she looked at herself in the glass, and hesitated. She was afraid she wouldn't please him; her dress was too simple; it was an ordinary morning street costume.

Suddenly the door opened, and Laura appeared. As usual, she wore white, a frock of soft white wool, exquisitely delicate and graceful. Her hat was covered with white feathers, that waved with every breath of air. And in her hands she held a bunch of beautiful fresh tea-roses.

"Oh, how pretty you are!" cried Anna. "And who gave you those lovely roses?"

"Cesare."

"Give me one--give me one." And she put out her hand.

She put it into her button-hole, inexpressibly happy to possess a flower that he had brought to the house and presented to her sister.

"When did you see Cesare?" she asked, taking up her purse, across which _Anna Dias_ was stamped, and her sunshade.

"I haven't seen him. He sent these flowers to my room."

"How kind he is."

"Very kind," repeated her sister, like an echo.

They went into the drawing-room and waited for Cesare. He came presently, drawing on his gloves. He was somewhat annoyed at having to go to the races with his family--he who had hitherto always gone as a bachelor, on a friend's four-in-hand, or alone in his own phæton. His bad humour was only partially concealed.

"Ah, here is the charming Minerva!" he cried, perceiving Laura. "How smart we are! A proper spring toilet, indeed. Good, good! Well, let's be off."

Anna had hoped for a word from him too, but she got none. Cesare had seen her dress of nut-coloured wool, and he deemed it unworthy of remark. For a moment all the beauty of the April day was extinguished, and she descended the stairs with heavy steps. But out of doors the air was full of light and gaiety; the streets were crowded with carriages and with pedestrians; on every balcony there were ladies in light colours, with red parasols; and a million scintillating atoms danced in every ray of sunshine. Anna told herself she must bear in patience the consequences of the error she had made in putting on that ugly brown frock. Laura's face was lovely as a rose under her white hat; and Anna rejoiced in her sister's beauty, and in the admiring glances that everybody gave her.

"It's going to be beastly hot," said Cesare, as they drove into the Toledo, where a crowd had gathered to watch the procession of carriages.

"The Grand Stand will be covered. We'll find a good place," said Anna.

"Oh, I'm to leave you when we get there," he reminded her. He was determined to put an end to this family scene as soon as he could. "I must leave a clear field for Laura's adorers. I give place to them because I am old."

Laura smiled.

"So, Anna, I'll leave you to your maternal duties. I recommend you to keep an especial eye upon Luigi Caracciolo--upon him in particular."

"What do you mean?" Anna asked absently.

"Nothing, dear."

"I thought----" she began, without finishing her sentence.

Bows and smiles and words of greeting were reaching them from every side. They passed or overtook numberless people whom they knew, some in carriages, some on foot. Cesare was inwardly mortified by the conjugal exhibition of himself that he was obliged to make, and looked with secret envy at his bachelor friends.

But his regret was sharpest when a handsome four-in-hand dashed past, with Giulio Carafa on the box and the Contessa d'Alemagna beside him. That dark, vivacious, blue-eyed lady wore a costume of pale yellow silk, and a broad straw hat trimmed with cream-coloured feathers. She carried a bunch of lilac in her hands, lilac that lives but a single day in our ardent climate, and is rich with intoxicating fragrance. All the men on Carafa's coach bowed to Dias, and the Contessa d'Alemagna smiled upon him and waved her flowers; and his heart was bitten by a great desire to be there, with them, instead of here, in this stupid domestic party.

He was silent; and Anna's eyes filled with tears, for she understood what his silence meant. At the sight of her tears his irritation increased.

"Well, what is it?" he asked, looking at her with his dominating coldness.

"Nothing," she said, turning her head away, to hide her emotion.

That question and answer were equivalent to one of the long and stormy discussions that are usual between husbands and wives. Between them such discussions never took place. Their life was regulated according to the compact they had made on that moonlit night at Sorrento; she realised now that what had then seemed to her a way of being saved was only a way of dying more slowly; but he had kept his word, and she must keep hers. He had married her; she must not reproach him. Only sometimes her sorrow appeared too plainly; then he never failed to find a word or a glance to remind her of her promise.

To-day, for the thousandth time, he regretted the sacrifice he had made, and cursed his generosity.

The whole distance from the Toledo to the Campo di Marte was passed in silence. As they approached the Reclusorio, Luigi Caracciolo drove by them with his tandem. He bowed cordially to them. Anna dropped her eyes; Laura smiled upon him.

"What a handsome fellow!" exclaimed Dias, with the sincere admiration of one man of the world for another.

"Very handsome," said Laura, who was accustomed to speak her girlish mind with sufficient freedom.

"He pleases you, eh?" inquired Cesare, with a smile.

"He pleases me," she said, with her habitual freedom and her habitual indifference.

"It's a pity he was never able to take Anna's fancy," Cesare added, with enigmatical irony.

"I hate handsome youths," said Anna, proudly.

"You wouldn't be the impetuous woman that you are, my dear, if you didn't hate everything that other people like. We've got a creature of passion in the family, Laura," he said, with a frank expression of scorn.

"Yes," assented the cruel sister.

Anna smiled faintly in disdain. Again the beauty of the day was extinguished for her; the warm April afternoon was like a dark winter's evening.

The rose that Laura had given her had fallen to pieces, shedding its petals on the carriage floor. Anna would have liked to gather them all up and preserve them. The most she could do, however, was to take a single one that lay in her lap, and put it into the opening of her glove, against the palm of her hand.

At the entrance of the racing-grounds they met the Contessa d'Alemagna again. She smiled graciously upon Anna and Laura. Anna tried to smile in return; Laura bowed coldly.

"Don't you like the Contessa d'Alemagna?" asked Cesare, as he conducted his wife and sister-in-law to their places in the members' stand.

"No," said Laura.

"You're wrong," said he.

"That may be. But she's antipathetic to me."

"I like her," said Anna, feebly.

Cesare found places for them, and gave them each an opera-glass. Then he stood up and said to Anna:

"You will be all right here?"

"Perfectly."

"Nothing I can do for you?"

"Nothing."

"I'll come back for the third race. I'm going now to bet. Good-bye."

And he went off with the light step of a liberated man. Anna watched him as he crossed the turf towards the weighing-stand.

She was surrounded by acquaintances, and they were all talking together. Being a bride, she received a good deal of attention; Dias was popular, and his popularity reflected itself upon her. Besides, people found her interesting, with her black, passionate eyes, the pure oval of her face, and her fresh red lips.

Luigi Caracciolo came up to where the sisters were seated.

"Cesare has deserted you?" he asked, jestingly.

"He's gone to bet. He'll soon come back," said Anna.

"He's betting with the Contessa d'Alemagna," suggested Laura, with one of those perverse smiles which contrasted so oddly with the purity of her face.

"Then he'll not come back so soon," said Luigi, sitting down.

"Have you never seen the races before?" he asked.

"No, I have never seen them," said Anna.

"It's rather a tiresome sight," said he, pulling his blonde moustaches.

"It's interesting to see the people," said Anna.

"It's the crowd that always gives its interest to a scene," said he, with an intonation of profound thought.

Laura was looking through her opera-glass. "There's Cesare," she cried suddenly.

Cesare was walking and talking with the beautiful Contessa d'Alemagna, and two other men, who walked in front of them, occasionally turned and took part in the conversation. As he passed his wife and sister, he looked up and bowed. Anna responded, smiling, but her smile was a forced and weary one.

Luigi Caracciolo, feigning not to have noticed this incident, said to her: "That's a charming dress you're wearing. It's an inspiration."

"Do you like it?" she asked, with a thankful look.

"Yes. I admire these English fashions. I think our women are wrong to go to a horse-race dressed as if for a garden-party. It's not smart."

He took her sunshade and toyed with it, reading the inscription, engraved on its silver handle.

"'_Attendre pour atteindre._'[A] Is that your motto?" he inquired.

"Yes."

"Have you never had another?"

"Never."

"It's a wise one," he remarked. "It's a fact that everything comes at last to those who know how to wait."

"Alas! not everything, not everything," she murmured, sadly.

There was a burst of applause from the multitude. The second race was over, and the favourite had won, a Naples-bred horse. People crowded about the bookmakers, to receive the value of their bets.

"Perhaps Cesare has won," said Laura. "He was always talking about _Amarilli_."

"Cesare always wins," said Luigi.

"He is not named Cesare[B] for nothing," said Anna, proudly.

"And like the great Julius all his victories were won after he had turned forty--especially those in Germany."[C]

But Anna did not hear this malicious pleasantry. She was thinking of other things.

By and by her husband came to her.

"Are you enjoying it, Anna?" he asked.

"Yes, I am enjoying it."

"And you, Laura?"

"Oh, immensely," she answered, coldly.

"Would you like to see the weighing ground?"

"Yes," she said, taking her shawl and her sunshade.

"I can't take _you_," said Cesare to his wife, who was gazing imploringly at him. "We should look ridiculous."

But she did not appear resigned.

"We should be ridiculous," he repeated imperiously. "Thank goodness, we're not perpetually on our wedding journey."

They went away, leaving her with a pain in her heart which she felt was killing her. She half closed her eyes, and only one idea was clear in the sorrowful confusion of her mind--that her husband was right. She had broken their agreement; she had promised never to entreat him, never to reproach him. It was weak and wicked of her, she told herself, to have consented to such an agreement--a compact by which her love, her pride, and her dignity were alike bound to suffer. She had made another great mistake when she did that, and this time an irreparable mistake.

"Ah, you are alone?" said Luigi Caracciolo, coming up again.

"Alone."

"Something is troubling you. What is it?"

"I am bored; and a person who is bored bores others."

"Let us bore ourselves together, Signora Dias. That will be diverting. I have always wished to bore myself with you, you know."

She shook her head, to forbid his referring to the past.

"Ah, you won't consent? You're very cruel."

She put her opera-glass to her eyes, and looked off across the course.

"If you're going to treat me as badly as this, you'd better send me away," he said, with some feeling.

"The stand is free to all the world," she answered, tormented by the thought that if her husband should come back, he might imagine that she was glad to talk with Caracciolo.

"You are a Domitian in woman's clothes," he cried. "Ah, you women! When you don't like a man you destroy him straightway."

She did not hear him; or, hearing, she did not understand.

"You are too high up for me," he went on. "To descend to my level would be impossible for you and unworthy of you. It's equally impossible for me to rise to yours."

"You are quite mistaken. I'm anything rather than a superior being. I'm a human earthly woman, like all others--more than others."

"Then why do you suffer?"

"Because love is very bitter."

"What love?"

"All love. It is bitterer than aloes, bitterer than gall, bitter in life and in death."

There was another outburst of applause, and the crowd began to move. The races of the first day were over.

Anna looked for her husband. He appeared presently, with Laura on his arm.

"You leave your wife to the most melancholy solitude," said Caracciolo, laughing.

"I was sure you would keep her company, you're such a true friend to me," laughed Cesare.

Caracciolo gave his arm to Anna.

"In any case, it wasn't to render you a service," said Luigi.

"I know your fidelity," said Dias.

"You are my master."

Neither of the ladies spoke. Anna gave herself up to the happiness of having recovered her husband, of going away with him, of taking him home. He seemed excited and pleased, as if he had enjoyed the events of the afternoon without stopping to analyse their frivolity and emptiness. He had amused himself in his usual way, forgetting for the moment the subtle but constant annoyance of his marriage. He was merry, and he showed his merriment by joking with Caracciolo, with Laura, even with his wife.

Anna was very happy. The long day had tired her. But now she felt the warmth and comfort of his presence, and that compensated her for her hours of abandonment. They had some difficulty finding their carriage, but Cesare was not impatient. Caracciolo, meanwhile, was looking for his own tranquilly, never for a moment neglecting his chivalric duties.

When their carriage was discovered, the two men helped the ladies into it; and Cesare, standing beside it, disposed of their shawls and their opera-glasses with the carefulness of a model husband, at the same time exchanging a passing word or two with Caracciolo.

Suddenly Cesare closed the carriage-door, and said to the coachman--"Home."

"Aren't you coming with us?" Anna asked in a low voice.

"No. There's a place for me on Giulio Carafa's four-in-hand. I shall get to Naples sooner than you will. The four-in-hand can go outside the line."

"Four-in-hands are very amusing," said Caracciolo, shaking hands with the two women.

"Shall we have a late dinner?" asked Anna.

"Don't wait dinner for me. I am going to dine at the Contessa d'Alemagna's, with Giulio Carafa and Marco Paliano."

"Very well," said Anna.

She watched Cesare and Luigi as they moved away, puffing their cigarettes. Then she said to the coachman, "Drive home."

During the long drive the sisters scarcely spoke. They were accustomed to respect each other's hours of silence. A soft breeze was blowing from the north. They were both a little pale. Perhaps it was the spectacle of the return from the Campo di Marte, which made them thoughtful; the many carriages, full of people who bore on their faces the signs of happiness due to a fine day of sunshine, passed in the open air, amid the thousand flattering coquetries of love and fancy; the beautiful women, wrapped in their cloaks; the sort of spiritual intoxication that glowed in the eyes of everybody.

The streets were lined by an immense crowd of shop-keepers and working-people, who made a holiday pleasure of watching the stream of carriages; and another crowd looked down from the balconies of the houses.

Presently Anna leaned forward and took her shawl and wrapped it round her shoulders.

"Are you cold?" asked Laura, helping her.

"Yes."

Laura also put on her shawl; she, too, was cold.

Luigi Caracciolo's tandem passed them. Anna did not see him. Laura bowed.

When they had reached the Piazza San Ferdinando, Anna asked: "Would you like to drive about a little?"

"No, let us go home."

And when they were in the house, "We must go in to dinner," Laura said.

"I'm not going to dine. I have a headache," said Anna.

At last she was alone. In her own room she threw aside her hat and veil, her sunshade, her purse, her pocket-handkerchief; she fell into an arm-chair, and was shaken by a storm of sobs and tears.

From above her little writing-table Cesare's portrait seemed to smile upon the flowers that were placed under it.

She raised her eyes, and looked at his beautiful and noble face, which appeared to glow with love and life. A great impulse of passion rose in her heart; she took the portrait and kissed it, and bathed it in her tears, murmuring, "my love, my love, why do you treat me like this? Ah, I can only love you, love you; and you are killing me."

Hours passed unnoticed by her. Some one came to her door and asked whether she wished for a lamp; she answered, "No."

By-and-bye she saw a white figure standing before her. She recognised Laura. And she saw that Laura was weeping. She had never seen her weep before.

"You are crying. What are you crying for?" she asked.

"Yes," answered Laura, vaguely, with a gesture.

And they wept together.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] "Wait to win." In French in the original.

[B] Cæsar.

[C] Alemagna. A punning reference to the Contessa.

II.

Cesare Dias came home one day towards six o'clock, in great good humour. At dinner he found everything excellent, though it was his habit to find everything bad. He ate with a hearty appetite, and told countless amusing stories, of the sort that he reserved for his agreeable moments. He joked with Laura, and with Anna; he even complimented his wife upon her dress, a new one that she had to-day put on for the first time. He succeeded in communicating his gaiety to the two women. Anna looked at him with meek and tender eyes; and as often as he smiled she smiled too.

Laura, it is true, spoke little, but in her face shone that expression of vivacity, of animation, which had characterised it for some time past. She agreed with everything Cesare said, bowing her head.

After dinner they all passed into Anna's drawing-room. It was her evening at home; and noticing that there were flowers in all the vases--it was in June, just a year after their talk at Sorrento--and seeing the silver samovar on the table, Cesare asked: "Are you expecting people to-night, Anna?"

"A few. Perhaps no one will come."

"Ah, that's why you've got yourself up so smartly."

"Did you fancy it was for you, that she had put on her new frock, Cesare?" Laura asked, jestingly.

"I was presumptuous enough to do so; and all presumptions are delusions. I'll bet that Luigi Caracciolo is coming--the ever faithful one."

"I'm sure I don't know," said Anna, indifferently.

"Oh, you hypocrite, Anna!" laughed Laura.

"Hypocrite, hypocrite!" repeated Cesare, also laughing. "Come, I'll warrant that the obstinate fidelity of Caracciolo has at last made an impression. Admirable! He's been in love with you for a hundred years."

"Oh, Cesare, don't joke about such subjects," Anna begged, in pain.

"You see, Laura, she is troubled."

"She's troubled, it's true," affirmed Laura.

"You're both of you heartless," Anna murmured.

Cesare opened his cigarette case, and playfully offered a cigarette to each of the ladies.

"I don't smoke," said Laura.

"Why don't you learn to?"

"Smoke is bad for the teeth;" and she showed her own, shining like those of Beatrice in the tale by Edgar Poe.

"You're right, fair Minerva. Will you smoke, Anna?"

"I don't smoke, either," she said, with a soft smile.

"You ought to learn. It would be becoming to you. You're dark, you have the Spanish type, and a _papelito_[D] would complete your charm."

"I will learn, Cesare," she assented.

"And what's more, smoke calms the nerves. You can't imagine the soothing effect it has. Nothing is better to relieve our little sorrows."

"Give me a cigarette, then," she said at once.

"Ah, you have little sorrows?"

"Who knows!" she sighed, putting aside her cigarette.

"You have no little sorrows, Laura?" asked Cesare.

"Neither little ones nor big ones."

"Who can boast of having never wept?" said Anna, with a melancholy accent.

"If we become sentimental, I shall take myself off," said Cesare.

"No, no, don't go away," Anna prayed him.

"I would remind you that we've got to pass our whole life-time together," said he, ironically, knocking off the ash of his cigarette.

"All our life-time, and more beyond it," said Anna, pensively.

"And more beyond! It's a grave affair. I will think of it while I am dressing, this evening."

"Where are you going?"

"To take a walk," he answered, rising.

"Why don't you stay here?" she ventured to ask.

"I can't. I'm obliged to go out."

"Come home early, won't you?"

"Early--yes," he consented, after a short hesitation.

"I'll wait for you, Cesare."

"Yes, yes. Good-night."

He went off.

Laura, according to her recent habit, had listened to this dialogue with her eyes half closed, and biting her lips; she said nothing. Whenever her sister and her brother-in-law exchanged a few affectionate words (and, indeed, Cesare did no more than respond to the affection of Anna), she assumed the countenance of a statue, which neither feels nor hears nor sees; or else, she got up and left the room noiselessly. Often Anna surprised on Laura's face a cynical smile that appeared the antithesis of its extreme purity, the irony of an icy virgin who is aware of the falsity and hollowness of love.

This evening, when Cesare had left them, the sisters remained together for a few minutes. But apparently both their minds were absorbed in deep thought; at any rate they could not keep up a conversation. Anna, in her lilac-coloured frock, lay in an easy-chair, leaning her head on her hands, over which her black hair seemed like a warrior's helmet. Laura was pulling and playing with the fringe of her white dress.

"I'm going; good night," she said suddenly.

"Why do you go, Laura?" asked Anna, issuing from her reverie.

"There's no use staying. People will be arriving."

"But stay for that very reason. You will help me to endure their visits."

"Oh, that's a task above my strength," said the blonde and beautiful Minerva. "Then, anyhow, it's you they come to see, my dear."

"You'll be married some day yourself," said Anna, laughing.

She was still in a pleasant mood--a reflection of Cesare's gaiety; and then he had promised to come home early.

"Who knows! Good night," and Laura rose to go away.

"But what are you going to do?"

"Read a little; then sleep."

"What are you reading?"

"'_Le mot de l'énigme_,'[E] by Madame Pauline Craven."

"A mystical romance? Do you want to become a nun?"

"Who knows! Good night."

Anna herself took up a book after Laura's departure. It was _Adolphe_, by Benjamin Constant; she had found it one day on her husband's writing-desk. In its cool yet ardent pages one feels the charm of a truthful story, surging up from the heart in a single, vibrant cry of pain. Anna had read it two or three times; now she began it again, absent-mindedly. But she did not read long. A few callers came; the Marchesa Scibilia, her relative, accompanied by Gaetano Althan, who always liked to go about with old ladies; Commander Gabriele Mari, a man of seventy; and then the Prince of Gioiosa, a handsome, witty, and intelligent Calabrian.

The conversation, of course, was a mixture of frivolity and seriousness, as conversations are apt to be in a small gathering like the present, where nobody cares to appear too much in earnest, and everybody tries to speak in paradoxes.

The Prince di Gioiosa was the last to leave; it was then past eleven.

"No one else will come," she thought.

But she was mistaken. Acquaintances passing in the street, and seeing her windows alight, came up to pay their respects. When the last of these had gone, "It is late; no one else will come," she thought again.

But again she was mistaken. The servant announced Luigi Caracciolo; and the handsome young fellow entered, with that English correctness of bearing which somewhat tempered the vivacity of his blonde youthfulness. He was in evening dress, and wore a spray of lilies of the valley in his button-hole.

Anna gave him her hand amicably. Her rings glittered in the lamplight.

"Starry hand," he said, bowing, and pressing it softly.

"Where do you come from?" she asked, with that polite curiosity which implies no real interest.

"From the opera," he said, seating himself beside her.

"What were they giving?"

"'The Huguenots'--always the same."

"It is always beautiful."

"Do you remember?" he asked with a tender, caressing voice. "They were singing 'The Huguenots' on the evening when I was introduced to you."

"Yes, yes; I remember that evening," she said, with sudden melancholy.

"How horribly I displeased you that night, didn't I? The only thing to approach it was the tremendously delightful impression you made on me."

"What nonsense!" she protested kindly.

"And your first impression of me has never changed--confess it," he said.

"Even if that were true, it wouldn't make you very unhappy."

"What can you know about that? You beautiful women, admired and loved--what do you know?"

"You're right. Indeed, we know nothing."

But he saw that her mind was away in a land of dreams, far from him. He felt all at once the distance that divided them.

"When you come back from your travels let me know, that I may welcome you," he said, with his smooth, caressing voice.

"What travels?"

"Ah! If I knew! If I knew where your thoughts are wandering while I talk to you, I could go with you, I could follow you in your fantasies. Instead, I speak, and you don't listen to me. I say serious things to you in a jesting tone, and you understand neither the seriousness nor the joke. You leave me here alone, whilst you roam--who knows where? And I, a humble mortal, without visions, without imagination, I can only wait for your return, my dear lady."

If, indeed, there was a certain poetic quality in what he said, there was a deeper poetry still in the tenderness and sweetness of his voice. He sat in front of her, gazing into her face, as if he could not tear himself from that contemplation. She sometimes lowered her eyes, sometimes turned them away, sometimes fixed them upon a page of _Adolphe_, which she had kept in her hands. If his gaze embarrassed her, however, his soft voice seemed to calm her nerves. She listened to it, scarcely understanding his words, as one listens to a vague pleasant music.

"Doesn't it bore you to wait?" she asked.

"I am never bored here. When I have this lovely sight before my eyes."

"What sight?" she inquired, ingenuously.

"Your person, my dear lady."

"But you can't always be looking at me," she said, laughing, trying to turn the conversation to a jest.

"That's a fatal misfortune, as they say in novels. I should like to pass my whole life near to you. Instead, I'm obliged to pass it among a lot of people who are utterly indifferent to me. A great misfortune!"

"It's not your fault," she said, with a faint smile.

"It certainly isn't. But that doesn't console me. Shall we try it--passing our lives together? One can overcome misfortunes. Our whole lives--that will mean many years."

"But I am married," she said, feeling that the talk was becoming dangerous.

"Oh, that's nothing," he cried emphatically.

"Caracciolo, I believe you've found the means to see me no more. What do you want from me?"

"Nothing, dear lady, nothing," he answered, with genuine grief in his face and voice.

"Then you ought not to risk destroying one of your friendships. What would Cesare have said if he had heard you for the last half hour?"

"Oh, nothing. He couldn't have heard me, you know, because he's never here."

"Sometimes he is," she said, with sudden emotion.

"Never, never. Don't tell pious fibs."

"He's always here."

"In your heart. I know it. It's an agreeable home for him, the more so because he can find others of the same sort wherever he goes."

"What are you saying?"

"One of my usual vulgarities. I'm speaking ill of your husband."

"Then be quiet."

But to soften the severity of this command, she offered him a box of cigarettes.

"Thanks for your charity," he said.

And he began to smoke, looking at one of her slippers of lilac satin embroidered with silver, which escaped from beneath her train. She sat with her elbow on the table, thinking. It was midnight. In a few minutes Caracciolo would be gone; and Cesare couldn't delay much longer about coming home.

Luigi Caracciolo seemed to divine her thoughts.

"After this cigarette, I will leave you. I'm afraid I've given you no great idea of my wit."

"I detest witty men."

"Small harm! I hope you believe, though, that I have a heart."

"I believe it."

"All the better. One day or another you will remember what I have said to you this evening, and understand it."

"Perhaps," she said, vaguely.

"You had a very happy inspiration, to dress in lilac. It's such a tender colour. That's the tint one sees in the sunsets at Venice. Have you ever been at Venice?"

"Never."

"That's a pity. It's a place full of soft tears. One can make a provision of them there, to last a life-time. Trifling loves become deep at Venice, and deep loves become indestructible. Good-night."

"Good-night."

She gave him her hand, like a white flower issuing from the satin of her sleeve. He touched it lightly with his lips, and went away.

Not for a moment during her conversation with Luigi Caracciolo had her husband been absent from Anna's mind. And all that the young man said, which constantly implied if it did not directly mention love, had but intensified her one eternal thought.

It was now half-past twelve. She rose and rang the bell; and her maid appeared.

They left the drawing-room and went into Anna's bedroom, which was lighted by a big lamp with a shade of pink silk.

Her maid helped her to undress, thinking that she was going to bed; but presently Anna asked for her tea-gown of cream-coloured crape, and put it on, as if she meant to sit up. She had loosened her hair, and it fell down her back in a single rich black tress.

The maid asked if she might go to bed. Anna said, "Yes." Cesare had given orders that no servant should ever sit up for him; he had a curiously wrought little key, a master-key, which he wore on his watch-chain, and which opened every door in his house. Thus he could come in at any hour of the night he liked, without being seen or heard. The maid went softly away, closing the door behind her.

Anna sat down in an easy chair, beside her bed. She still had the volume of _Adolphe_ in her hand. She sat still there, while she heard the servant moving about the apartment, shutting the windows. Then all was silent.

Anna got up, and opened the doors between her room and her husband's. So she would be able to hear him when he returned. He could not delay much longer. He had promised her to come home early; he knew that she would wait for him. And, as she had been doing through the whole evening, but with greater intensity than ever, she longed for the presence of her loved one. Was not every thing empty and colourless when he was away? And this evening he had been so merry and so kind. His promise resounded in her soul like a solemn vow. She thrilled with tremulous emotion. The softness of the spring night entered into her and exhilarated her.

She lay back in her easy-chair, with closed eyes, and dreamed of his coming. She felt an immense need of him, to have him there beside her, to hold his hand in hers, to lean her head upon his shoulder in sweet, deep peace, listening to the beating of his heart, supported by his arms, while his breath fell upon her hair, her eyelids, her lips. A dream of love; vivid and languid, full of delicate ardour and melancholy desire.

She surprised herself murmuring his name. "Cesare, Cesare," she said, trembling with love at the sound of her own voice.

Suddenly it seemed to her that she heard a noise in her husband's room. Then he had come!

Swiftly, like a flying shadow, she crossed the passage, and looked in. Only silence and darkness! She had been mistaken. She leaned on the frame of the door, and remained thus for a long moment.

Slowly she returned to her own room, thinking that "early" must mean for a man of late habits like Cesare two o'clock in the morning. That was it! He would arrive at two.

She took up _Adolphe_, thinking to divert herself with reading, and thus to moderate her impatience. She opened the book towards the middle, where the passionate struggle between Ellenore and Adolphe is shown in all its sorrowful intensity. And from the dry, precise words, the hard, effective style, the brief and austere narrative, which was like the cry of a soul destroyed by scepticism, Anna derived an impression of fright. Ah, in her sincere, youthful faith, what a horror she had of that modern malady which corrupts the mind, depraves the conscience, and kills whatever is most noble in the soul! What could she know, poor, simple, ignorant woman, whose only belief, whose only law, whose only hope was love--what could she know of the spiritual diseases of those who have seen too much, who have loved too much, who have squandered the purest treasures of their feelings? What could she know of the desolating torture of those souls who can no longer believe in anything, not even in themselves, and who have lost their last ideal? She could know nothing; and yet a terror assailed her. Perhaps Cesare, her husband, was like _Adolphe_, who could never more be happy, who could never more give happiness to others. She shuddered, and threw the book aside, in great distress.

She got up mechanically, and took from a table a rosary of sandal wood, which a Missionary Friar had brought from Jerusalem.

She had never been regular in her devotions; her imagination was too fervid. But religious feelings seemed sometimes to sweep in upon her in great waves of divine love. A child of the South, she only prayed when moved by some strong pain, for which she could find no earthly relief. She forgot to pray when she was happy. Now she pressed her rosary to her lips, and began to repeat the long and poetical Litany, which Domenico de Guzman has dedicated to the Virgin. Ingenuously enough, she thought that in this way the time would pass more rapidly, two o'clock would strike, and Cesare would arrive. But she endeavoured in vain to fix her mind upon her orisons; it flew away, before her, to her meeting with her Beloved; and though her lips pronounced the words of the _Ave_ and the _Pater_, their sense escaped her. Once or twice she paused for a few minutes, and then went on, confused, beseeching Heaven's pardon for her slight attention.

When her rosary was finished, it was two precisely. Now Cesare would come.

She could not control her nervousness. She took her lamp and went into her husband's room: she placed the lamp on the writing-desk, and seated herself in one of the leather arm-chairs. She felt easier here; the austerity of the big chamber, with its dark furniture, told her that her husband's soul was above the sterile and frivolous pleasures in which he had already lost the best part of the night.

The air still smelt of cigarette smoke. Here and there a point of metal gleamed in the lamplight. On a table lay a pair of gloves; they had been worn that day, and they retained the form of his hands. She kissed them, and put them into the bosom of her gown.

But where was Cesare?

She began to pace backwards and forwards, the train of her dress following her like a white wave. Why did he not come home? It was late, very late. There were no balls on for that night; no social function could detain him till this hour.

Where was Cesare? Ah, Cesare, Cesare, Cesare, her dear love, where was he? She passed her hands over her burning forehead.

All at once, looking out into the night, she noticed in the distance the windows of Cesare's club, brilliantly lighted. Then a sudden peace came to her. He would be there, playing, talking, enjoying the company of his friends, forgetful of the time. It was an old habit of his, and old habits are so hard to break. She remained at the window of his room, with her eyes fixed upon the windows of his club; the light that shone from them was the pole-star of her heart.

She opened the window and went out upon the balcony.

Presently two men issued from the club-house, stood for a moment chatting together at the entrance, and then moved off towards the Chiaia. Ah, she thought, the company at the Club was beginning to break up; at last Cesare would come. At the end of ten minutes, four men came out together. These also chatted together for a minute, then separated, two going towards the Riviera, two entering the Via Vittoria. By-and-by one man came out alone, and advanced directly towards Dias' house. This, this surely would be he.

The man was looking up, towards the balcony.

"Good-night, Signora Anna," said the voice of Luigi Caracciolo.

"Good-night," she murmured, faint with disappointment.

Caracciolo had stopped, and was leaning on the railing, gazing up at her. Anna drew back out of sight.

"Good-night, Anna," he repeated, very softly.

She did not answer.

Caracciolo went off, slowly, slowly; stopping now and then to look back.

She turned her eyes again upon the windows of the club, but they were quite dark; the lights had been extinguished.

So Caracciolo had been the last to leave; and Cesare was not there!

She felt terribly cold, all at once. Her teeth chattered. She went back into the room, shivering, and had scarcely strength enough to shut the window. She fell upon a chair, exhausted. The clock struck. It was half-past three.

And now a hideous suspicion began to torture her. There were no balls to-night, no receptions, no functions. The club was shut up. The cafés were shut up. All talking, eating, drinking, gambling, were over for the night. The life of the night was spent. Everybody had gone home to bed. Then where was Cesare? Cesare, her husband, was with a woman! And jealousy began to gnaw her heart. With a woman; that was certain. The truth burned her soul. He could be nowhere else than with a woman. The truth rang in her heart like a trumpet-blast. Mechanically she put her fingers to her ears to shut out the words--_with a woman, with a woman_.

But what woman?

She knew nothing of her husband's secrets, nothing of his past or present loves.

She was a mere stranger whom he tolerated, not a friend, not a confidant. She was a troublesome bond upon him, an obstacle to his pleasures, an interference with his habits. No doubt there were older bonds, stronger ties, that kept him from her; or it might be the mere force of a passing fancy. But for what woman, for what woman? In vain she tried to give the woman a name, a living form.

Oh, certainly not a lady, not a woman of honourable rank and reputation; not the Contessa d'Alemagna.

Who then? Who then?

How much time passed, while she sat there, in a convulsion of tears and sobs, prey to all the anguish of jealousy?

The day broke; a greenish, livid light entered the room.

The handle of the door turned. Cesare came in. He was very pale, with dull, weary eyes. He had a cigarette in his mouth; his lips were blue. The collar of his overcoat was turned up; his hands were in his pockets. He looked at his wife indifferently, coldly, as if he did not recognise her.

She rose. Her face was ashen. Her capacity for feeling was exhausted.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

He threw away his cigarette, and took off his hat. How old and used up he looked, with his hair in disorder, his cheeks sunken from lack of sleep.

"I was waiting for you," she said.

"All night?"

"All night."

"You have great patience."

He opened the door.

"Good-bye, Anna."

"Good-bye, Cesare."

And she returned to her own room.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] Spanish in the original.

[E] The key to the riddle.

III.

About the middle of June, in the first summer of his marriage, Cesare Dias brought his wife and his sister-in-law to the Villa Caterina at Sorrento. He would leave them there, while he went to take the baths at Vichy. Afterwards he was going to Saint-Moritz in the Engadine, whither betake themselves such persons as desire to be cold in summer, the same who, desiring to be hot in winter, hibernate at Nice. Anna had secretly wished to accompany her husband upon this journey, longing to be alone with him, far from their usual surroundings; but she was to be left behind.

Ever since that night when she had sat up till dawn waiting for him, tormented, disillusioned, her faith destroyed, her moral strength exhausted, there had been a coldness between the couple. Cesare had lost no time in asserting his independence of her, and had vouchsafed but the vaguest explanations, saying in general terms that a man might pass a night out of his house, chatting with friends or playing cards, for any one of a multitude of reasons. Anna had listened without answering. She dreaded above all things having a quarrel with her husband. She closed her eyes and listened. He flung his explanation at her with an air of contempt. She was silent but not satisfied.

She could never forget the hours of that night, when, for the first time, she had drained her cup of bitterness to its dregs, and looked into the bottom depths of human wickedness. The sweetness of her love had then been poisoned.

As for Cesare, he had been exceedingly annoyed by her waiting for him, which seemed to him an altogether extravagant manifestation of her fondness. It annoyed him to have been surprised in the early morning light looking old and ugly; it annoyed him to have to explain his absence; and it annoyed him finally to think that similar scenes might occur again. Oh, how he loathed these tragic women and their tragedies! After having hated them his whole life long, them and their tears and their vapourings, behold! he had been trapped into marrying one of them--for his sins; and his rancour at the inconceivable folly he had committed vented itself upon Anna. She, sad in the essence of her soul, humble, disheartened, understood her husband's feelings; and by means of her devotion and tenderness sought to procure his pardon for her offence--the offence of having waited for him that night! One day, when Anna had been even more penitent and more affectionate than usual, he had indeed made some show of forgiving her, with the pretentious indulgence of a superior being; she had taken his forgiveness as a slave takes a kind word after a beating, smiling with tears in her eyes, happy that he had not punished her more heavily for her fault.

But the truth is, he was a man and not an angel. He had forgiven her; yet he still wished to punish her. On no consideration would he take her with him to Vichy and Saint-Moritz. He gave her to understand that their wedding-journey was finished; that it would never do to leave her sister Laura alone for two months with no other chaperone than Stella Martini; that it wasn't his wish to play Joseph Prudhomme, and travel in the bosom of his family; in short, he gave her to understand in a thousand ways that he wished to go alone; and she resigned herself to staying behind in preference to forcing her company upon him. She flattered herself, poor thing, that this act of submission, so hard for her to make, would restore her to her lord's good graces. He went away, indeed in great good temper. He seemed rejuvenated. The idea of the absolute liberty he was about to enjoy filled him with enthusiasm. He recommended his ladies (as he jokingly called the sisters) not to be too nun-like, but to go out, to receive, to amuse themselves as they wished. Anna heard this advice, pale with downcast eyes; Laura listened to it with an odd smile on her lips, looking straight into her brother-in-law's face. She too was pale and mute.

After his departure a great, sad silence seemed to invade the villa. Each of the sisters was pensive and reserved; they spoke but little together; they even appeared to avoid each other. For the rest, the charming youthful serenity of the blonde Minerva had vanished; her white brow was clouded with thought. They were in the same house, but for some time they rarely met.

Anna wrote to Cesare twice a day; she told him everything that happened; she opened to him her every fancy, her every dream; she wrote with the effusiveness of a passionate woman, who, too timid to express herself by spoken words, finds her outlet in letters. Writing, she could tell him how she loved him, that she was his in body and soul. Cesare wrote to her once or twice a week, and not at length; but in each of his notes there would be, if not a word of love, at least some kindly phrase; and upon that Anna would live for three or four days--until his next letter arrived. He was enjoying himself; he was feeling better; he would return soon. Sometimes he even expressed a wish for her presence, that she might share his pleasure in a landscape or laugh with him at some original fellow-traveller. He always sent his remembrances to Laura; and Anna would read them out to her.

"Thank you," was all that Laura responded.

Laura herself wrote a good deal in these days. What was she writing? And to whom? She sat at her little desk, shut up in her room, and covered big sheets of paper with her clear, firm handwriting. If any one entered, she covered what she had written with her blotting-paper, and remained silent, with lowered eyes, toying with her pen. More than once Anna had come in. Thereupon Laura had gathered up her manuscripts, and locked them into a drawer, controlling with an effort the trouble in her face.

"What are you writing?" Anna asked one day, overcoming her timidity, and moved by a strange impulse of curiosity.

"Nothing that would interest you," the other answered.

"How can you say so?" the elder sister protested, with indulgent tenderness. "Whatever pleases you or moves you must interest me."

"Nothing pleases me and nothing moves me," Laura said, looking down.

"Not even what you are writing?"

"Not even what I am writing."

"How reserved you are! How close you keep your secrets! But why should you have any?" Anna insisted affectionately.

"Yes," said Laura, vaguely. She got up and left the room, carrying her key with her.

Anna never again referred to what her sister was writing. It might be letters, it might be a journal.

In July, Sorrento filled up with tourists and holiday folk; and the other villas were occupied by their owners. The sisters were invited about a good deal, and lured into the thousand summer gaieties of the town.

One of the earliest arrivals was Luigi Caracciolo. He came to Sorrento every season, but usually not till the middle of August, and then to spend no more than a fortnight. He had rather a disdain for Sorrento, he who had travelled over the whole of Europe. This year he came in the first week of July; and he was determined to stay until Anna Dias left. He was genuinely in love with her; in his own way, of course. The mystery that hung over her past, and her love for Cesare Dias, which Luigi knew to be unrequited, made her all the dearer to him. He was in love, as men are in love who have loved many times before. Sometimes he lost his head a little in her presence, but never more than a little. He retained his mastery of himself sufficiently to pursue his own well-proved methods of love-making. He covered his real passion with a semblance of levity which served admirably to compel Anna to tolerate it.

She never allowed him--especially at Sorrento, where she was alone and where she was very sad--to speak of love; but she could not forbid him to call occasionally at the Villa Caterina, nor could she help meeting him here and there in the town. And Cesare, from Saint-Moritz, kept writing to her and Laura to amuse themselves, to go out, saying that he hated women who lived like recluses. And sometimes he would add a joking message for Caracciolo, calling him Anna's faithful cavalier; but she, through delicacy, had not delivered them.

Luigi did not pay too open a court to her, did not affect too great an intimacy; but he was never far from her. For a whole evening he would hover near her at a party, waiting for the moment when he might seat himself beside her; he would leave when she left, and on the pretext of taking a little walk in the moonlight, would accompany the two ladies to the door of their house. He was persevering, with a gentle, continuous, untiring perseverance that nothing could overcome, neither Anna's silence, nor her coldness, nor her melancholy. She often spoke to him of Cesare, and with so much feeling in her voice that he turned pale, wounded in his pride, disappointed in his desire, yet not despairing, for it is always a hopeful sign when a woman loves, even though she loves another. Then the only difficulty (though an immense one) is to change the face of the man she loves to your own, by a sort of sentimental sleight of hand.

For various reasons, he was extremely cautious. He was not one of those who enjoy advertising their desires and their discomfitures on the walls of the town. Then, he did not wish to alarm Anna, and cause her to close her door to him. And besides, he was afraid of the silent watchfulness of Laura. The beautiful Minerva and the handsome young man had never understood each other; they were given to exchanging somewhat sharp words at their encounters, a remarkable proceeding on the part of Laura, who usually talked little, and then only in brief and colourless sentences. Her contempt for him was undisguised. It appeared in her manner of looking him over when he wore a new suit of clothes, in her manner of beginning and ending her remarks to him with the phrase, "A handsome young fellow like you." That was rather bold, for a girl, but Laura was over twenty, and both the sisters passed for being nice, but rather original, nice but original, as their mother and father had been before them. Luigi Caracciolo himself thought them odd, but the oddity of Anna was adorable, that of Laura made him uneasy and distrustful. He was afraid that on one day or another, she might denounce him to Cesare, and betray his love for the other's wife. She had such a sarcastic smile sometimes on her lips! And her laughter had such a scornful ring! He imagined the most fantastic things in respect of her, and feared her mightily.

"How strange your sister is," he said once to Anna, finding her alone.

"She's good, though," said Anna, thoughtfully.

"Does she seem so to you?"

"Yes."

"You little know. You're very ingenuous. She's probably a monster of perfidy," he said softly.

"Why do you say that to me, Caracciolo? Don't you know that I dislike such jokes?"

"If I offend you, I'll hold my tongue. I keep my opinion, though. Some day you'll agree with me."

"Be quiet, Caracciolo. You distress me."

"It's much better to have no illusions; then we can't lose them, dear lady."

"It is better to lose illusions, than never to have had them."

"What a deep heart is yours! How I should like to drown in it! Let me drown myself in your heart, Anna."

"Don't call me by my name," she said, as if she had heard only his last word.

"I will obey," he answered meekly.

"You, too, are good," she murmured, absently.

"I am as bad as can be, Signora," he rejoined, piqued.

She shook her head good-naturedly, with the smile of one who would not believe in human wickedness, who would keep her faith intact, in spite of past delusions. And the more Luigi Caracciolo posed as a depraved character, the more she showed her belief that at the bottom every human soul is good.

"Everybody is good, according to you," he said. "Then I suppose your husband, Cesare, is good too?"

"Too? He is the best of all. He is absolutely good," she cried, her voice softening as it always did when she spoke of Cesare.

"He who leaves you here alone after a few months of marriage?"

"But I'm not alone," she retorted, simply.

"You're not alone--you're in bad company," he said, nervously.

"Do you think so? I wasn't aware of it."

"You couldn't tell me more politely that I'm a nonentity. But he, he who is away, and who no doubt invents a thousands pretence to explain his absence to you--can you really say that he is good."

"Cesare invents no pretences for me," she replied, turning pale.

"Who says so? He? Do you believe him?"

"He says nothing. I have faith in him," she answered, overwhelmed to hear her own daily fears thus uttered for her.

Caracciolo looked at her anxiously. Merely to hear her pronounce her husband's name proved that she adored him. Luigi was too expert a student of women not to interpret rightly her pallor, her emotion, her distress. He did not know, but he could easily guess that Anna wrote to Cesare every day, and that he responded rarely and briefly. He understood how heavy her long hours of solitude must be, amid the blue and green of the Sorrento landscape, passed in constant longing for her husband's presence. He understood perfectly that she was consumed by secret jealousy, and that he tortured her cruelly when by a word, or an insinuation he inspired her with new suspicions. He could read her heart like an open book; but he loved her all the better for the intense passion that breathed from its pages. He did not despair. Sooner or later, he was convinced, he would succeed in overcoming the obstacle in his way. He adopted the ancient method of assailing the character of the absent man.

When he would mention some old flame of Cesare's, or some affair that still continued, and which his marriage could not break off, or when he would speak of Cesare's desertion of his young wife, he saw Anna's face change; he knew the anguish that he woke in her heart, and he suffered wretchedly to realise that it was for the love of another man. His weapon was a double-edged sword, that wounded her and wounded him. But what of that? He continued to wield it, believing that thus little by little he could deface the image of Cesare Dias that Anna consecrated with her adoration.

Anna was always ready to talk of her husband, and that gave him his opportunity for putting in his innuendoes. At the same time it caused him much bitterness of spirit, and sometimes he would say, "We are three. How do you do, Cesare?" bowing to an imaginary presence.

Anna's eyes filled with tears at such moments.

"Forgive me, forgive me," he cried. "But when you introduce his name into our conversation, you cause me such agony that I feel I am winning my place in heaven. Go on: I am already tied to the rack; force your knife into my heart, gentle torturess."

And she, at first timidly, but then with the impetuousness of an open and generous nature, would continue to talk of Cesare. Where was he, what was he doing, when would he return? she would ask; and he by-and-by would interrupt her speculations to suggest that Cesare was probably just now on the Righi, with the Comtesse de Béhague, one of his old French loves, whom he met every year in Switzerland; and that he would very likely not return to Sorrento at all, nor even to Naples before the end of October.

"I don't believe it, I don't believe it," she protested.

"You don't believe it? But it's his usual habit. Why should he alter it this year?"

"He has me to think of now."

"Ah, dear Anna, dear Anna, he thinks of you so little!"

"Don't call me by my name," she said, making a gesture to forbid him.

"If Cesare heard me he wouldn't like it--eh?"

"I think so."

"You hope so, dear lady, which is a very different thing. But he's not jealous."

"No; he's not jealous," she repeated, softly, lost in sorrowful meditations. "But what man is?"

"He's a man who has never thought of anything but his own pleasure."

"Sad, sad," she murmured very low.

Yet, though she thoroughly well understood that a better knowledge of her husband's past life could only bring her greater pain, she began to question Luigi Caracciolo about Cesare's adventures. Ah, how ashamed she was to do so! It seemed like violating a confidence; like desecrating an idol that she had erected on the altar of her heart. It seemed like breaking the most sacred condition of love, which is secrecy, to speak thus of her love to a man who loved her. Yet the temptation was too strong for her. And cautiously, by hints, she endeavoured to draw from Caracciolo some fact, some episode, a detail, a name, a date; she would try to ask indifferently, feigning a slight interest, attempting without success to play the woman of wit--she, poor thing, who was only a woman of heart.

Caracciolo understood at once, and for form's sake assumed a certain reluctance. Then, as if won by her wishes, he would speak; he would give her a fact, an episode, a date, a name, commenting upon it in such wise as, without directly speaking ill of Cesare, to underline his hardness of heart and his incapacity for real passion. It was sad wisdom that Anna hereby gained. Her husband's soul was cold and arid; he had always been the same; nothing had ever changed him. Sometimes, sick and tired, she would pray Caracciolo by a gesture to stop his talk; she would remain thoughtful and silent, feeling that she had poured a corrosive acid into her own wounds. Sometimes Laura would be present at these conversations, beautiful, in white garments, with soft, lovely eyes. She listened to Caracciolo with close attention, whilst an inscrutable smile played on her virginal lips. He, in deference to the young girl's presence, would, from time to time, drop the subject; then Laura would look at him with an expression of ardent curiosity that surprised him, a look that seemed to ask a hundred questions. His narrative of the life of Cesare Dias succeeded in spoiling Anna's holiday, but did not advance his courtship by an inch.

He has great patience, and unlimited faith in his method. He knew that a strong passion or a strong desire can overcome in time the most insurmountable obstacles. Yet he had moments of terrible discouragement. How she loved him, Cesare Dias, this beautiful woman! It was a love all the more sad to contemplate, because of the discrepancies of age and character between husband and wife. Here was a fresh young girl uncomplainingly supporting the neglect of a worn-out man of forty.

One day, unexpectedly, Cesare returned. From his wife's pallor, from her trembling, he understood how much he had been loved during his absence. He was very kind to her, very gallant, very tender. He embraced her and kissed her many times, effusively, and told her that she was far lovelier than the ladies of France and Switzerland. He was in the best of good humours; and she, laughing with tears in her eyes, and holding his hand as she stood beside him, realised anew how single and absolute was her love for him.

Two or three times Cesare asked, "And Laura?"

"She's very well. She'll be coming soon."

"You haven't found her a husband?"

"She doesn't want one."

"That's what all girls say."

"Laura is obstinate. She really doesn't want one. People even think she would like to become a nun."

"Nonsense."

"The strange thing is that once when I asked her if it was true, she answered no."

"She's an odd girl," said Cesare, a little pensively.

"I don't understand her."

"Ah, for that matter, you understand very little in general," said her husband, caressing her hair to temper his impertinence.

"Oh, you're right; very little," she answered, with a happy smile. "I'm an imbecile."

But Laura did not come, though she had been called. Anna sent her maid. "She would come at once; she was dressing," was the reply. They waited for her a few minutes longer; and when she appeared in the doorway, dazzling in white, with her golden hair in a rich coil on the top of her head, Anna cried, "Laura, Cesare has come."

Cesare rose and advanced to meet his sister-in-law. She gave him her hand, and he kissed it. But he saw that she was offering her face; then he embraced her, kissing her cheek, which was like the petal of a camellia. This was all over in an instant, but it seemed a long instant to Anna; and she had an instinctive feeling of repulsion when Laura, blushing a little, came up and kissed her. It was an instinctive caress on the part of Laura, and an instinctive movement of repulsion on that of Anna. Not that she had the faintest evil thought or suspicion; it was a vague distress, a subtle pain, nothing else.

From that day life in the quiet Villa Caterina became sensibly gayer; there were visits and receptions, dances, and yachting parties. It was an extremely lively season at Sorrento. There were a good many foreigners in the town; amongst them two or three wild American girls, who swam, rowed, played croquet and lawn-tennis, were very charming, and had handsome dowries. It became the fashion for the men to make love to these young persons, a thing that was sufficiently unusual in a society where flirtation with unmarried women is supposed to be forbidden. Cesare told Anna that it was a propitious moment for launching Laura; she too had a handsome dowry, and was very lovely, though she lacked perhaps the vivacity of the wild Americans; and with the energy of a youth, he took his wife and sister everywhere.

Luigi Caracciolo continued to make his court to Anna. With delicate cynicism, Cesare, on his return, had inquired whether Luigi had faithfully discharged his duty as her cavalier, but Anna had turned such talk aside, for it hurt her. Laura, however, declared that Luigi had accomplished miracles of devotion, and shown himself a model of constancy.

"And the lady, what of her?" asked Cesare, pulling his handsome black moustaches.

"Heartless," Laura answered, smiling at Anna, for whom this joking was a martyrdom.

"Noble but heartless lady!" repeated Cesare.

"Would you have wished me to be otherwise?" demanded Anna, quickly, looking into her husband's eyes.

"No; I should not have wished it," was his prompt rejoinder.

In spite of this downright pronouncement, in which her husband, for all his cynicism, asserted his invincible right to her fidelity--in spite of the fact that Cesare appeared to watch the comings and goings of Caracciolo--he openly jested with his wife's follower about his courtship.

"Well, how is it getting on, Luigi?" he asked one day.

"Badly, Cesare. It couldn't be worse," responded Luigi, with a melancholy accent that was only half a feint.

"And yet I left the field free to you."

"Yes; you are as generous as the emperors your namesakes; but when you have captured a province you know how to keep it, whether you are far or near."

"Men of my age always do, Luigi."

"Ah, you have a different tradition."

"What tradition?"

"You don't love."

"What! Do you mean to say that you young fellows love?" asked Cesare, lifting his eyebrows.

"Sometimes, you know, we commit that folly."

"It's a mistaken method--a grave blunder. I hope that you've not fallen into it."

"I don't know," said Luigi, looking mysterious. "Besides, your question strikes me as prompted by jealousy. I'll say no more. It might end in bloodshed."

"I don't think so," laughed Cesare.

"But you'll drive me to despair, Dias. Don't you see that your confidence tortures me. For heaven's sake, do me the favour of being jealous."

"Anything to oblige you, my dear fellow, except that. I've never been jealous of a woman in my life."

"And why not?"

"Because----. One day or another I'll tell you." And putting his arm through Luigi's he led him into the drawing-room of the Hotel Vittoria.

Such talks were frequent between them; on Cesare's side calm and ironical, on Luigi's sometimes a little bitter. On their family outings, Cesare always gave his arm to Laura, for he held it ridiculous for a husband to pair off with his wife; and Caracciolo would devote himself to Anna. Cesare would make him a sign of intelligence, laughing at his assiduity.

"Rigidly obeying orders, eh?" asked the sarcastic husband.

"Anyhow, it's she who's given me my orders," answered the other, sadly.

"But really, Anna, you're putting to death the handsomest lad in Christendom!" exclaimed Cesare.

"The world is the richer for those who die of love," she returned.

"Sentimental aphorism," said Cesare, with a cutting ironical smile.

And he went away to dance with Laura. Between Anna and Luigi there was a long silence. It was impossible for her to listen to these pleasantries without suffering. The idea that her husband could speak thus lightly of another man's love for her, the idea that he could treat as a worldly frivolity the daily siege that Caracciolo was laying to her heart, martyrised her. She was nothing to him, since he could allow another man to court her. He never showed a sign of jealousy, and jealousy pleases women even when they know it is not sincere. She was angry with Cesare as much as with Luigi.

"You jest too much about your feelings for any woman to take them seriously," she said to the latter, one evening, when they were listening to a concert of mandolines and guitars.

"You're right," he answered, turning pale. "But once when I never jested, I had equally bad luck. You refused to marry me."

He spoke sadly. That she had refused to marry him still further embittered for him her present indifference. How could a woman have refused a rich and handsome youth, for a man who had passed forty, and was effete in mind and body? How had Cesare Dias so completely taken possession of this woman's heart? The passion of Anna for Cesare, and that of Caracciolo for Anna, were much talked of in Sorrento society, and the general opinion was that Dias must be a tremendous wizard, that he possessed to a supreme degree the art of attracting men and winning women, and that everybody was right to love and worship him. As for Caracciolo, his was the story of a failure.

Caracciolo himself, moved by I know not what instinct of loyalty, of vanity, or of subtle calculation, accepted and even exaggerated his role of an unsuccessful lover. Wherever he went, at the theatre, at parties, he showed plainly that he was waiting for Anna, and was nervous and restless until she came. His face changed when she entered, bowed to him, gave him her hand; and when she left he followed immediately. Perhaps he was glad that all this should be noticed. He knew he could never move her by appearing cold and sceptical; that was Cesare's pose, and in it Luigi could not hope to rival him. Perhaps her sympathies would be stirred if she saw him ardent and sorrowful.

In the autumn he perceived that Anna was troubled by some new grief. Her joy at the return of Cesare had given place to a strange agitation. She was pale and silent, with dark circles under her eyes. And he realised that whatever faint liking she had had for himself had been blotted out by a sorrow whose causes were unknown to him.

One day he said to her, "Something is troubling you?"

"Yes," she answered frankly.

"Will you tell me what it is?"

"No; I don't wish to," she said, with the same frankness.

"Am I unworthy of your confidence?"

"I can't tell it to you, I can't. It's too horrible," she murmured, with so heart-broken an inflection that he was silent, fearing lest others should witness her emotion.

He returned to the subject later on, but without result. Anna appeared horror-struck by her own thoughts and feelings. Luigi had numberless suspicions. Had Anna secretly come to love him? Or, had she fallen in love with some one else, some one unknown to him? But he soon saw that neither of these suppositions were tenable. He saw that she had not for a moment ceased to love Cesare Dias, and that her grief, whatever it was, sprang as usual from her love for him.

For the first week after his return her husband had been kind and tender to her; then, little by little, he had resumed his old indifference. He constantly neglected her. He went out perpetually with Laura, on the pretext that she was too old now to be accompanied only by her governess, and that it was his duty to find a husband for her. Sometimes Anna went with them, to enjoy her husband's presence.

Often he and Laura would joke together about this question of her marriage.

"How many suitors have you?" asked Cesare, laughing.

"Four who have declared themselves; three or four others who are a little uncertain."

Anna felt herself excluded from their intimacy, and sought in vain to enter it. It made her exceedingly unhappy.

She was jealous of her sister, and she hated herself for her jealousy.

"I am vile and perfidious since I suspect others of vileness and perfidy," she told herself to.

Was it possible that Cesare could be guilty of such a dreadful sin, that he could be making love to Laura?

"What's the matter with you? What are you thinking about?" he asked his wife.

"Nothing, nothing."

"What's the matter?" he insisted.

"Don't ask me, don't ask me," she exclaimed, putting her hand over his mouth.

But one evening, when they were alone, and he again questioned her, she answered, "It's because I love you so, Cesare, I love you so."

"I know it," he said, with a light smile. "But it isn't only that, dear Anna."

And he playfully ruffled up her black hair.

"You're right. It isn't only that. I'm jealous of you, Cesare."

"And of what woman?" he asked, suddenly becoming cold and imperious.

"Of all women. If you so much as touch a woman's hand, I am in despair."

"Of women in general?"

"Of women in general."

"Of no one in particular?"

She hesitated for a moment. "Of no one in particular."

"It's fancy, superstition," he said, pulling his moustache.

"It's love, love," she cried. "Ah, if you should love another, I would kill myself."

"I don't think you'll die a violent death," said he, laughing.

"Remember--darling--I would kill myself."

"You'll live to be eighty, and die in your bed," he said, still laughing.

For a few days she was reassured. But on the first occasion, when her husband and Laura again went out together, her jealousy returned, and she suffered atrociously. Her conduct became odd and extravagant. Sometimes she treated Laura with the greatest kindness; sometimes she was rude to her, and would leave her brusquely, to go and shut herself up in her own room.

Laura asked no questions.

"When are we going to leave Sorrento?" Anna asked. But her husband did not answer, appearing to wish to prolong their sojourn there.

"Let us go away, I beg you, Cesare."

"So soon? Naples is empty at this season. There's nothing to do there. We'd have the air of provincials."

"That doesn't matter. Let us go away, Cesare."

"You are bored, here in the loveliest spot in the world?"

"Sorrento is lovely, but I want to go away."

"As you wish," he said, suddenly consenting. "Give orders to the servants to make ready."

And, to avenge himself, he neglected her utterly during the last two or three days, going off constantly with Laura.

On the eve of their departure Luigi Caracciolo called, to make his adieux. He found Anna alone.

"Good evening, Signora Dias," he said, and the commonplace words had an inflection of melancholy.

"Good evening. You've not gone to the farewell dance at the Vittoria?"

"I have no farewells to give except to you."

"Farewell, then," she said, seating herself near him.

"Farewell," he murmured, smiling, and looking into her eyes. "But we shall meet again within a fortnight."

"I don't know whether I shall be receiving so soon. I don't know whether I shall receive at all."

"You're going to shut your doors to me?" he asked, turning pale.

"Not to you only, to everybody. I'm not made for society. I'm out of place in it, out of tune with it. Solitude suits me better."

"You will die of loneliness. Seeing a few devoted friends will do you good."

"My troubles are too deep."

"Don't you think you're a little selfish? If you shut your doors, others will suffer, and you don't care. You are willing to deprive us of the great pleasure of seeing you. But don't you know that the pain we give reacts upon ourselves? Don't be selfish."

"It's true. I'm perhaps selfish. But who of us is perfect? The most innocent, the purest people in the world, can make others unhappy, without wishing to."

He studied her, feeling that he was near to the secret of her sorrow.

"Sorrento has bored you?" he asked.

"Not exactly bored me. I have been unhappy here."

"More unhappy than at Naples?"

"More than at Naples."

"And why?"

"I don't know. I carry my unhappiness with me."

"Did you imagine that Sorrento would make over the man you love?"

"I hoped----"

"Nothing can make that man over. He's not bad perhaps; but he's what he is."

"It's true."

"Why, then, do you seek the impossible?" he went on.

"And you--aren't you seeking the impossible?" she retorted.

"Yes. But I stop at wishing for it. You see how reasonable I am. You are sad, very sad, Anna, and not for my sake, for another's; yet I should be so happy if I could help you or comfort you in any way."

"Thank you, thank you," she replied, moved.

"I believe that dark days are waiting for you at Naples. I don't wish to prophesy evil, Anna, but that is my belief."

"I'm sure of it," said she, and a sudden desperation showed itself in her face.

"Well, will you treat me as a friend, and remember me in your moments of pain?"

"Yes, I will remember you."

"Will you call me to you?"

"I will call upon you as upon a brother."

"Listen, Anna. Officially I live with my mother in our old family palace. But my real home is the Rey Villa in the Chiatamone. I promise you, Anna, that I am speaking to you now, as I would speak to my dearest sister. Remember this, that, beginning a fortnight hence, I will wait there every day till four o'clock in the afternoon, to hear from you. I shall be quite alone in the house, Anna. You can come without fear, if you need me. Or you can send for me. My dearest hope will be in some way to serve you. I will obey you like a slave. Anna, Anna, when your hour of trouble arrives, remember that I am waiting for you. When you have need of a friend's help, remember that I am waiting."

"But why do you give me your life like this?"

"Because it is good to give it thus. You, if you loved, would you not do the same?"

"I would do the same. I would give my life."

"You see! But forget that word love; it escaped me involuntarily. It is not the man who loves you, it is the devoted friend, it is the brother, whom you are to remember. My every day will be at your disposal. I swear that no unhallowed thought shall move me."

"I believe you," she said.

She gave him her hand. He kissed it.

IV.

Anna was as good as her word, and on her return to Naples shut herself up in solitude and silence, receiving no one, visiting no one, spending much of her time in her own room, going in the morning for long walks in the hope of tiring herself out, speaking but little, and living in a sort of moral somnolence that seemed to dull her sorrows. Her husband and sister continued to enjoy their liberty, as they had enjoyed it at Sorrento. She left them to themselves. She was alternately consumed by suspicions and remorseful for them. In vain she sought comfort from religion, her piety could not bear the contact of her earthly passion, and was destroyed by it. She had gone to her confessor, meaning to tell him everything, but when she found herself kneeling before the iron grating, her courage failed her; she dared not accuse her husband and her sister to a stranger. So she spoke confusedly and vaguely, and the good priest could give her only vague consolation.

She abandoned herself to a complete moral prostration. She passed long hours motionless in her easy-chair, or on her bed, in a sort of stupor and often was absent from table, on one pretext or another.

"The Signora came home an hour ago, and is lying down," said Cesare's man-servant.

"Very good. Don't disturb her," returned his master, with an air of relief.

"The Signora has a headache, and will not come to luncheon," said Anna's maid to Laura.

"Very good. Stay within call, if she should wish for anything," responded Laura, serene and imperturbable.

And Cesare and Laura merrily pursued their intimacy, never bestowing a thought upon her whom they thereby wounded in every fibre of her body, and in the essence of her soul. The anguish of jealousy is like the anguish of death, and Anna suffered it to the ultimate pang, at the same time despising herself for it, telling herself that she was the most unjust of women. Her sister was purity itself; her husband was incapable of evil; they were superior beings, worthy of adoration; and she was daily thinking of them as criminals, and covering them with mire. Often and often, in the rare moments when her husband treated her affectionately, she longed to open her heart and tell him everything. But his manner intimidated her, and she dared not. She wondered whether she might not be mad, and whether her jealousy was not the figment of an infirm mind. She had hoped to find peace in flying from Sorrento; now her hope was undeceived; and Anna understood that her pain came from within, not from without. To see her sister and her husband together, seated side by side, walking arm in arm, pressing each other's hands, looking and smiling at each other, was more than she could bear; she fled their presence; she left the house for long wanderings in the streets, or shut herself up in her own room, knowing but too well that they would not notice her absence. Indeed, it would be like a burden taken from their shoulders, for she was a burden to them, with her pallor and her speechlessness.

"They are gay, and I bore them," she told herself.

On several occasions, Cesare twitted her on the subject of her continual melancholy, demanding its cause; but Anna, smarting under his sarcasms, could not answer him. One day, in great irritation, he declared that she had no right to go about posing as a victim, for she wasn't a victim, and her sentimental vapourings bored him immensely.

"Ah, I bore you; I bore you," cried Anna, shaking with suppressed sobs.

"Yes, unspeakably. And I hope that some day or another you'll stop boring me, do you hear?"

"I had better die. That would be best," she sighed.

"But can't you live and be less tiresome? Is it a task, a mission, that you have undertaken, to bore people?"

"I had better die, better die," she sobbed.

He went off abruptly, cursing his lot, cursing above all the monstrous error he had made in marrying this foolish creature. And she, who had wished to ask his pardon, found herself alone. Later in the same day she noticed that Laura treated her with a certain contempt, shrugging her shoulders at the sight of her eyes red from weeping.

Anna determined that she would try to take on at least the external appearances of contentment. The beautiful Neapolitan winter was beginning. She had eight or ten new frocks made, and resolved to become frivolous and vain. Whenever she went out she invariably met Luigi Caracciolo; it was as if she had forewarned him of her itinerary. He had divined it, with that fine intuition which lovers have. They never stopped to speak, however; they simply bowed and passed on. But in his way of looking at her she could read the words of their understanding--"Remember, every day, till four o'clock."

She threw herself into the excitements of society, going much to the theatre and paying many calls. Cesare encouraged this new departure.

The people amongst whom she moved agreed that she was very attractive, but whispered that one day or another she would do something wild.

"What?"

"Oh, something altogether extravagant."

One evening towards the end of January Anna was going to the San Carlo; it was a first night. At dinner she asked Laura if she would care to accompany her.

"No," answered Laura, absently.

"Why not?"

"I've got to get up early to-morrow morning, to go to Confession."

"Ah, very well. And you--will you come, Cesare?"

"Yes," he said, hesitating a little.

"Cousin Scibilia is coming too," Anna added.

"Then, if you will permit me, I'll not come till the second act." And he smiled amiably.

"Have you something to do?"

"Yes; but we'll come home together."

Anna turned red and white. There was something half apologetic in her husband's tone, as if he had a guilty conscience in regard to her. But what did that matter? The prospect of coming home together, alone in a closed carriage, delighted her.

She went to dress for the theatre. She put on for the first time a gown of blue brocade, with a long train, bold in colour, but admirably setting off the rich ivory of Anna's complexion. In her black hair she fixed three diamond stars. She wore no bracelets, but round her throat a single string of pearls. When she was dressed, she sent for her husband.

"You're looking most beautiful," he said.

He took her hands and kissed them; then he kissed her fair round arms; and then he kissed her lips. She thrilled with joy and bowed her head.

"We'll meet at the theatre," he said, "and come home together."

She called for the Marchesa Scibilia, who now lived in the girls' old house in the Via Gerolomini. And they drove on towards the theatre. But when they reached the Toledo they were met by a number of carriages returning. The explanation of this the two ladies learned under the portico of the San Carlo. Over the white play-bill a notice was posted announcing the sudden indisposition of the prima-donna, and informing the public that there would accordingly be no performance that evening. Anna had a lively movement of disappointment, jumping out of her _coupé_ to read the notice for herself.

Luigi Caracciolo was waiting in the shadow of a pillar, sure that she would come.

"Marchesa, you have a very ferocious cousin," he said, stepping forward to kiss the old lady's hand, and laughing at Anna's manifest anger. Then he bowed to her, and in his eyes there was the eternal message, "Remember, I wait for you every day."

She shook her head in the darkness. She was bitterly disappointed. Her evening was lost--the evening during which she had counted upon being alone with Cesare in their box, alone with him in the carriage, alone with him at home. And her beautiful blue gown; she had put it on to no purpose.

"What shall we do?" she asked her cousin.

"I'm going home. I don't care to go anywhere else. And you?"

"I'm going home, too."

She half hoped that she might still find Cesare at the house, and so have at least a half hour with him before he went out. He was very slow about dressing; he never hurried, even when he had an urgent appointment. Perhaps she would find him in his room, tying his white tie, putting a flower in his button-hole. She deposited the Marchesa Scibilia at the palace in the Via Gerolomini, and bade her coachman hurry home.

"Has the Signore gone out?" she asked the porter.

No, he had not gone out. The porter was about to pull his bell-cord, to ring for a footman, but Anna instinctively stopped him. She wished to surprise her husband. She put her finger to her lips, smiling, as she met one of the maids, and crossed the house noiselessly, arriving thus at the door of Cesare's room, the door that gave upon the vestibule, not the one which communicated with the passage between his room and Anna's.

The door was not locked. She opened it softly. She would surprise her husband so merrily. But, having opened the door, she found herself still in darkness, for Cesare had lowered the two _portières_ of heavy olive velvet.

A sudden interior force prevented Anna's lifting the curtains and showing herself. She remained there behind them, perfectly concealed, and able to see and hear everything that went on in the room, through an aperture.

Cesare was in his dress-suit, with an immaculate white waistcoat, a watch-chain that went from his waistcoat-pocket to the pocket of his trousers, with a beautiful white gardenia in his button-hole, his handsome black moustaches freshly curled, and his whole air one of profound satisfaction. He was seated in a big leather arm-chair, his fine head resting on its brown cushions, against which the pallor of his face stood out charmingly.

He was not alone.

Laura, dressed in that soft white wool which seemed especially woven for her supple and flowing figure, with a bouquet of white roses in the cincture that passed twice loosely round her waist, with her blonde hair artistically held in place by small combs of tortoise-shell, and forming a sort of aureole about her brow and temples, the glory of her womanly beauty--Laura was in Cesare's room.

She was not seated on one of his olive velvet sofas, nor on one of his stools of carved wood, nor in one of his leather easy-chairs. She was seated on the arm of the chair in which he himself reclined; she was seated side wise, swinging one of her little feet, in a black slipper richly embroidered with pearls, and an open-work black silk stocking.

One of her arms was extended across the cushion above Cesare's head; and, being higher up than he, she had to bend down, to speak into his face. She was smiling, a strange, deep smile, such as had never been seen before upon the pure red curve of her lips.

Cesare, with his face turned up, was looking at her; and every now and then he took her hand and kissed it, a kiss that lingered, lingered while she changed colour.

He kissed her hand, and she was silent, and he was silent; but it was not a sad silence, not a thoughtful silence. It was a silence in which they seemed to find an unutterable pleasure. They found an unutterable pleasure in their silence, their solitude, their freedom, their intimate companionship, in the kiss he had just given her, and which was the forerunner of many others.

Anna had arrived behind the curtain at the very moment when Cesare was kissing Laura's hand. She saw them gazing into each other's eyes, speechless with their emotion. Anna could hear nothing but the tumultuous beating of her own heart, a beating that leapt up to her throat, making it too throb tumultuously.

The fine white hand of Laura remained in Cesare's, softly surrendered to him; then, as if the mere contact were not enough, his and her fingers closely interlaced themselves. The girl, who had not removed her eyes from his, smiled languorously, as if all her soul were in her hand, joined now for ever to the hand of Cesare; a smile that confessed herself conquered, yet proclaimed herself triumphant.

They did not speak. But their story spoke for itself.

Anna saw how close they were to each other, saw how their hands were joined, saw the glances of passionate tenderness that they exchanged. Clearly, in every detail, she witnessed this silent scene of love. Her heart, her temples, her pulses, pounded frightfully; her nerves palpitated; and she said to herself:

"Oh, I am dreaming, I am dreaming."

Like one dreaming, indeed, she was unable to move, unable to cry out; her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth; she could not lift the curtains; she could not advance, she could not tear herself away. She could only stand there rigid as stone, and behold the dreadful vision. Every line of it, every passing expression on Cesare's or Laura's face, burned itself into her brain with fierce and terrible precision. And in her tortured heart she was conscious of but one mute, continuous, childlike prayer--not to see any longer that which she saw--to be freed from her nightmare, waked from her dream. And all her inner forces were bent upon the effort to close her eyes, to lower her eyelids, and put a veil between her and that sight. Her prayer was not answered; she could not close her eyes.

Laura took her bouquet of white roses from her belt, and playfully struck Cesare's shoulder with them. Then she raised them to her face, breathing in their perfume, and kissing them. Smiling, she offered Cesare the roses that she had kissed, and he with his lips drank her kisses from them. After that, she kissed them again, convulsively, turning away her head. Their eyes burned, his and hers. Again he sought her kisses amongst the roses; and she put down her face to kiss them anew, at the same time with him. And slowly, from the cold, fragrant roses, their lips turned, and met in a kiss. Their hands were joined, their faces were near together, their lips met in a kiss, and their eyes that had burned, softened with fond light.

"Perhaps I am mad," Anna said to herself, hearing the wild blows of the blood in her brain.

And, to make sure, wishing to be convinced that it was all an hallucination, she prayed that they might speak; perhaps they were mere phantoms sent to kill her. No sound issued from their lips.

"Lord, Lord--a word," she prayed in her heart. "A sound--a proof that they are real, or that they are spectres."

She heard, indeed, a deep sigh. It came from Laura, after their long kiss. The girl jumped up, freed her hands from Cesare's, and took two or three steps into the room. She was nearer to Anna now. Her cheeks were red, her hair was ruffled; and she, with a vague, unconscious movement, lifted it up behind her ears. Her lips were parted in a smile that revealed her dazzling teeth. Her gaze wandered, proud and sad.

"Heaven, heaven give her strength to go away. Give her strength, give me strength," prayed Anna, in her dream, in her madness.

But Laura had not the strength to go away. She returned to Cesare; she sat down at his feet, looking up at him, smiling upon him, holding his hand, adoring him. And Cesare, his eyes filled with tears, kissed her lips again and again--a torrent of kisses.

"Cesare cannot weep. They are phantoms. I am mad," said Anna. A terrible fire leapt from her heart to her brain, making her tremble as in a fever; and then a sudden cold seemed to freeze her. She had heard. These phantoms had spoken. They were a man and a woman; they were her husband, Cesare, and her sister Laura. Laura had drawn away from Cesare's fury of kisses, and was standing beside him, while he, still seated, held her two hands. They were smiling upon each other.

"Do you love me?" he asked.

"I love you," answered Laura.

"How much do you love me?"

"So much! So much!"

"But how much?"

"Absolutely."

"And--how long will you love me, Laura?"

"Always."

Now Anna was shivering with cold. She was not mad. She was not dreaming. Her teeth chattered. It seemed as if she had been standing there for a century. She dreaded being discovered, as if she were guilty of a crime. But she could not move, she could not go away. It was too much, too much; she could not endure it! She covered her mouth with her fan, to suffocate her voice, to keep from crying out, and cursing God and love. Laura began to speak.

"Do you love me?" she asked.

"Yes, I love you."

"How much do you love me?"

"With all my heart, Laura."

"How long have you loved me?"

"Always."

"How long will you love me?"

"Always."

Unendurable, unendurable! A wild anger tempted Anna to enter the room, to tear down the curtains, to scream. It was unendurable.

Cesare said to Laura, very softly, "Go away now."

"Why, love?"

"Go away. It is late. You must go."

"Ah, you're a bad love--bad!"

"Don't say that. Don't look like that. Go away, Laura."

And fondly, he put his arm round her waist and led her to the door.

She moved reluctantly, leaning her head upon his shoulder, looking up at him tenderly.

At the door they kissed again.

"Good-bye, love," said Laura.

"Good-bye, love," said Cesare.

The girl went away.

Cesare came back, looking exhausted, deathlike. He lit a cigarette.

Anna, holding her breath, crossed the vestibule, the smoking-room, the drawing-room, and at last reached her own room, and shut her door behind her. She had run swiftly, instinctively, with the instinct that guides a wounded animal. Her maid came and knocked. She called to her that she did not need her. Then some one else knocked.

"Anna, Anna," said the calm voice of her husband.

"What do you want?" She had to lean on a chair, to keep from falling; her voice was dull.

"Was there no performance? Or were you ill?"

"There was no performance."

"Have you just returned?"

"Yes, just returned." But the lie made her blush.

"And your Highness is invisible? I should like to pay your Highness my respects."

"No," she answered, with a choking voice.

"Good-bye, love," he called.

"Oh, infamous, infamous!" she cried.

But he had already moved away, and did not hear.

* * * * *

For a long while she lay on her bed, burying her face in her pillow, biting it, to keep down her sobs. She was shivering with cold, in spite of the feather coverlet she had drawn over her. All her flesh and spirit were in furious revolt against the thing that she had seen and heard.

She rose, and looked round her room. It was in disorder--the dress she had worn, her fan, her jewels tossed pell-mell hither and thither. Slowly, with minute care, she gathered these objects up, and put them in their places.

Then she rang the bell.

Her maid came, half asleep.

"What time is it?" asked Anna, forgetting that on the table beside her stood the clock that Cesare had given her.

"It's one," responded the maid.

"So late?" inquired her mistress. "You may go to bed."

"And your Excellency?"

"You can do nothing for me."

But the maid began to smooth down the bed. Feeling the pillow wet with tears, she said, with the affectionate familiarity of Neapolitan servants, "Whoever is good suffers."

The words went through her heart like a knife. Perhaps the servant knew. Perhaps she, Anna, had been the only blind member of the household. The whole miserable story of her desertion and betrayal was known and commented upon by her servants; and she was an object of their pity! Whoever is good suffers!

"Good night, your Excellency, and may you sleep well," said the maid.

"Thank you. Good-night."

She was alone again. She had not had the courage to ask whether her husband had come home; he was most probably out, amusing himself in society.

For a half hour she lay on her sofa; then she got up. A big lamp burned on her table, but before going away her maid had lighted another lamp, a little ancient Pompeian lamp of bronze that in old times had doubtless lighted Pompeian ladies to their trysts.

Anna took this lamp and left her room. The house was dark and silent. She moved towards Laura's room; and suddenly she remembered another night, like this, when she had stolen through a dark sleeping house to join Giustino Morelli on the terrace, and offer to fly with him. Giustino Morelli, who was he? what was he? A shadow, a dream. A thing that had passed utterly from her life.

At her sister's door she paused for a moment, then she opened it noiselessly, and guided by the light of her lamp, approached her sister's bed. Laura was sleeping peacefully; Anna held up her lamp and looked at her.

She smiled in her sleep.

"Laura!" Anna called, so close to her that her breath fell on her cheek. "Laura!"

Her sister moved slightly, but did not wake.

"Laura! Laura!"

Her sister sat up. She appeared frightened for a moment, but then she composed herself with an effort.

"It is I, Laura," said Anna, putting her lamp on a table.

"I see you," returned Laura.

"Get up and come with me."

"What for?"

"Get up and come, Laura."

"Where, Anna?"

"Get up and come," said Anna, implacably.

"I won't obey you."

"Oh, you'll come," cried Anna, with an imperious smile.

"You're mistaken. I'll not come."

"You'll come, Laura."

"No, Anna."

"You're very much afraid of me then?"

"Here I am. I'll go where you like," Laura said, proudly, resenting the imputation of fear. And she began to dress.

Anna waited for her, standing up. Laura proceeded calmly with her toilet. But when she came to put on her frock of white wool, Anna had a mad access of rage, and covered her face with her hands, to shut out the sight. Four hours ago, only four hours ago, in that same frock, Laura had been kissed by Cesare. Her sister seemed to her the living image of treachery.

Laura moved about the room as if she was hunting for something.

"What are you doing?" asked Anna.

"I am looking for something."

And she drew from under a pocket-handkerchief her bunch of white roses.

"Throw those flowers away," cried Anna.

"And why?"

"Throw those flowers away, Laura, Laura."

"No."

"By our Lady of Sorrows, I beseech you, throw them away."

"You have threatened me. You have no further right to beseech me," said Laura quietly, putting the flowers in her belt.

"Oh God!" cried Anna, pressing her hands to her temples.

"Let us go," she said at last.

Laura followed her across the silent house to her room.

"Sit down," said Anna.

"I am waiting," said Laura.

"Then you don't understand?" asked Anna, smiling.

"No--I understand nothing."

"Can't you imagine?"

"I have no imagination."

"And your heart--does your heart tell you nothing, Laura? Laura, Laura, does your conscience tell you nothing?"

"Nothing," said the other quietly, lifting up the rich blonde hair behind her ears. The same gesture that Anna had seen her make in Cesare's room.

"Laura, you are my husband's mistress," Anna said, raising her arms towards heaven.

"You're mad, Anna."

"My husband's mistress, Laura."

"You're mad."

"Oh, liar, liar! Disloyal and vile woman, who has not even the courage of her love!" cried Anna, starting up, with flaming eyes.

"Beware, Anna, beware. Strong language at a moment like this is dangerous. Say what you've got to say clearly; but don't insult me. Don't insult me, because your diseased imagination happens to be excited. Do you understand?"

"Oh, heavens, heavens!" exclaimed Anna.

"But you can see for yourself, you're mad. You see, you have nothing to say to justify your insults."

"Oh, Madonna, Madonna, give me strength," prayed Anna, wringing her hands.

"Do you see?" asked Laura. "You've called me here to vilify my innocence."

"Laura," said poor Anna, trembling, "Laura, it's no guess of mine, no inference, that you are my husband's mistress. I have not read it in any anonymous letter. No servant has told me it. In such a case as this no one has a right to believe an anonymous letter or a servant's denunciation. One cannot on such grounds withdraw one's respect from a person whom one loves."

"Well, Anna."

"But I have seen, I have seen," she cried, prey to so violent an emotion that it seemed to her as if the thing she had seen was visible before her again.

"What have you seen?" asked Laura, suddenly.

"Oh, horrible, horrible," cried Anna, remembering her vision.

"What have you seen?" repeated Laura, seizing Anna's arm.

"Oh, what a dreadful thing, what a dreadful thing," she sobbed, covering her face with her hands.

But Laura was herself consumed with anger and pain; and she drew Anna's hands from her face, and insisted, "Now--at this very moment--you have got to tell me what you have seen. Do you understand?"

And the other, turning pale at her threatening tone, replied: "You wish to know what I have seen, Laura? And you ask me in a rage of offended innocence, of wounded virtue? You are angry, Laura? Angry--you? What right have you to be angry, or to speak to me as you have done? Aren't you afraid? Have you no fear, no suspicions, nothing? You threaten me; you tell me I am mad. You want to know what I have seen; and you are haughty because you deem yourself secure, and me a madwoman. But, to be secure, you should close the doors behind you when you go to an assignation. When you are speaking of love, and kissing, to be secure you should close the doors, Laura, close the doors."

"I don't understand you," murmured Laura, very pale.

"This evening, at nine o'clock, when you were in Cesare's room--I came home suddenly--you weren't expecting me--you were alone, secure--and I saw through the door----"

"What?" demanded the other, with bowed head.

"As much as can be seen and heard. Remember."

Laura fell into a chair.

"Why have you done this? Why? Why?" asked Anna.

Laura did not answer.

"Don't you dare to answer? Oh, see how base you are! See how perfidious you are. What manner of woman are you? Why did you do it?"

"Because I love Cesare."

"O Lord, Lord!" cried Anna, breaking into desperate sobs.

"Don't you know it? Haven't your eyes seen it? haven't your ears heard it? Do you imagine that a woman such as I am goes into a man's room if she doesn't love him! That she lets him kiss her, that she kisses him, unless she loves him! What more have you to ask! I love Cesare."

"Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet," said Anna.

"And Cesare loves me," Laura went on.

"Be quiet. You are my sister. You are a young girl. Don't speak such an infamy. Be quiet. Don't say that you and Cesare are two monsters."

"You have seen us together. I love Cesare, and he loves me."

"Monstrous, infamous!"

"It may be infamous, but it is so."

"But don't you realise what you are doing! Don't you feel that it is infamous; Don't you understand how dreadful your offence is! Am I not your sister--I whom you are betraying!"

"I loved Cesare from the beginning. You betrayed me."

"The excuse of guilt! I loved him, I love him. You are betraying me."

"You love him stupidly, and bore him; I love him well."

"He's a married man."

"He was married by force, Anna."

"He is my husband."

"Oh, very slightly!"

"Laura!" exclaimed Anna, wounded to the quick, she who was all wounds.

"I'm not blind," said Laura, tranquilly. "I can take in the situation."

"But your conscience! But your religion! But your modesty, which is soiled by such an atrocious sin!"

"I'm not your husband's mistress, you know that yourself."

"But you love him. You thrill at the touch of his hand. You kiss him. You tell him you love him."

"Well, all that doesn't signify that I'm his mistress."

"The sin is as great."

"No, it's not as great, Anna."

"It's a deadly sin merely to love another woman's husband."

"But I'm not his mistress. Be exact."

"A change of words; the sin is the same."

"Words have their importance; they are the symbols of facts."

"It's an infamy," said Anna.

"Anna, don't insult me."

"Insult you! Do you pretend that that pretty pure face of yours is capable of blushing under an insult? Can your chaste brow be troubled by an insult? You have trampled all innocence and all modesty under foot--you, the daughter of my mother! You have broken your sister's heart--you, the daughter of the same mother! And now you say that I insult you. Good!"

"You have no right to insult me."

"I haven't the right? Before such treachery? I haven't the right? Before such dishonour?"

"If you will call upon your memory, you will see that you haven't the right."

"What do you wish me to remember?"

"A single circumstance. Once upon a time, you, a girl like me, abandoned your home, and eloped with a man you loved, a nobody, a poor obscure nobody. Then you deceived me, Cesare, and everybody else. By that elopement you dishonoured the graves of your father and mother, and you dishonoured your name which is also mine."

"Oh, heavens, heavens, heavens!" cried Anna.

"You passed a whole day out of Naples, in an inn at Pompeii, alone the whole day with a man you loved, in a private room."

"I wasn't Giustino Morelli's mistress."

"Exactly. Nor am I Cesare Dias'."

"I wasn't Giustino Morelli's mistress," repeated Anna.

"I wasn't behind the door, as you were, to see the truth."

"Oh, cruel, wicked sister--cruel and wicked!"

"And please to have the fairness to remember that on that day Cesare Dias rushed to your rescue. In charity, without saying a word to reproach you, he brought you back to the home you had deserted. In charity, without insulting you, I opened my arms to welcome you. In charity we nursed you through your long illness, and never once did we reproach you. You see, you see, you're unjust and ungrateful."

"But you have wounded me in my love, Laura. But I adore Cesare, and I am horribly jealous of him. I can't banish the thought of your love for him; I can remember nothing but your kisses. I feel as if I were going mad. Oh, Laura, Laura, you who were so pure and beautiful, you who are worthy of a young man's love, why do you throw away your life and your honour for Cesare?"

"But you? Don't you also love him? You too are young. Yet didn't you love him so desperately that you would gladly have died, if he hadn't married you? I have followed your example, that is all. As you love him, I love him, Anna. We are sisters, and the same passion burns in our veins."

"Don't say that, don't say it. My love will last as long as my life, Laura."

"And so will mine."

"Don't say it, don't say it."

"Until I die, Anna."

"Don't say it."

"My blood is like yours; my nerves are like yours; my heart is as ardent as yours. My soul is consumed with love, as yours is. We are the daughters of the same parents. Cesare has fascinated you, Cesare has fascinated me."

"Oh, heavens, heavens! I must kill myself then. I must die!"

"Bah!" said Laura, with a movement of disdain.

"I will kill myself, Laura."

"Those who say it don't do it."

"You are deceiving yourself, wicked, scornful creature."

"Those who say it don't do it," repeated Laura, laughing bitterly.

"But understand me! I can't endure this betrayal. Understand! I--I alone have the right to love Cesare. He is mine. I won't give him up to anybody. My only refuge, my only comfort, my only consolation is in my love. Don't you see that I have nothing else?"

"Luigi Caracciolo loves you, though," said Laura, smiling.

"What are you saying to me?"

"You might fall in love with him."

"You propose an infamy to me."

"But consider. I love Cesare; Cesare loves me and not you. But Caracciolo loves you. Well, why not fall in love with him?"

"Because it would be infamous."

"You are beginning to insult me again, Anna. It is late. I am going away."

"No, don't go yet, Laura. Think how terrible this thing is for me. Listen to me, Laura, and call to aid all your kindness. I have insulted you, it is true; but you can't know what jealousy is like, you can't imagine the unendurable torture of it. Call to aid your goodness, Laura. Think--we were nourished at the same breast, the same mother's hands caressed us. Think--we have made our journey in life together. Laura, Laura, my sister! You have betrayed me; you have outraged me; in the past seven hours I have suffered all that it is humanly possible to suffer; you can't know what jealousy is like. Don't be impatient. Listen to me. It is a terrible moment. Don't laugh. I am not exaggerating. Listen to me carefully. Laura, all that you have done, I forget it, I forgive it. Do you hear? I forgive you. I am sure your heart is good. You will understand all the affection and all the meekness there are in my forgiveness."

And as if it were she who were the guilty one, she knelt before her sister, taking her hand, kissing it, bathing it with her tears. Laura, seeing this woman whom she had so cruelly wronged kneel before her, closed her eyes, and for a moment was intensely pale. But her soul was strong; she was able to conquer her emotion. For an instant she was silent; then, coming to the supreme question of their existence, she demanded: "And what do you expect in exchange for this pardon?" She had the air of according a favour.

"Laura, Laura, you must be good and great, since I have forgiven you."

"What is your price for this forgiveness?"

"You must not love Cesare any more. Bravely you must cast that impure love out of your soul, which it degrades. You must not love him any more. And then, not only will my pardon be complete and absolute, but you will find in me the fondest and tenderest of sisters. I will devote my life to proving to you how much I love you. My sole desire will be to make you happy; I will be your best and surest friend. But you must be good and strong, Laura; you must remember that you are my sister; you must forget Cesare."

"Anna, I cannot."

"Listen, listen. Don't answer yet. Don't decide yet. Don't speak the last word yet, the awful word. Think, Laura, it is your future, it is your life, that you are staking upon this love: a black future, a fatal certainty of death, if you persist in it. But, on the contrary, if you forget it--if a chaste and innocent impulse of affection for me persuades you to put it from you--what peace, what calm! You will find another man, a worthier man, a man of your own loftiness of spirit, who will understand you, who will make you happy, whom you can love with all your soul, in the consciousness of having done your duty. You will be a happy wife, your husband will be a happy man, you will be a mother, you will have children--you will have children, you! But you must not love Cesare any more."

"Anna, I can't help it."

"Laura, don't make your mind up yet. For pity's sake, hear me. We must find a way out of it, an escape. You will travel, you will make a journey, a long journey, abroad; that will interest you. I'll ask Cousin Scibilia to go with you. She has nothing to detain her; she's a widow; she will go. You will travel. You can't think how travelling relieves one's sufferings. You will see new countries, beautiful countries, where your mind will rise high above the petty, every-day miseries of life. Laura, Laura, see how I pray you, see how I implore you. We have the same blood in our veins. We are children of the same mother. You must not love Cesare any more."

"Anna, I can't help it."

Anna moved towards her sister; but when she found herself face to face with her, an impulse of horror repelled her. She went to the window and stood there, gazing out into the street, into the great shadow of the night. When she came back, her face was cold, austere, self-contained. Her sister felt that she could read a menace in it.

"Is that your last word?" asked Anna.

"My last word."

"You don't think you can change?"

"I don't think so."

"You know what you are doing?"

"Yes, I know."

"And you face the danger?"

"Where is the danger?" asked Laura, rising.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid," said Anna, carrying her pocket-handkerchief to her lips and biting it. "I ask you if it doesn't strike you as dangerous that two women such as I, Anna Dias, and you, Laura Acquaviva, should live together in the same house and love the same man with the same passion?"

"It is certainly very dangerous," said Laura slowly, standing up, and looking into her sister's eyes.

"Leave me my husband, Laura," cried Anna, impetuously.

"Take him back--if you can. But you can't, you know. You never could."

"You're a monster. Go away," cried Anna, clenching her teeth, clenching her fists, driving her nails into her flesh.

"It's at your bidding that I'm here. I came to show that I wasn't afraid of you, that's all."

"Go away, monster, monster, monster!"

"Kill me, if you like; but don't call me by that name," cried Laura, at last exasperated.

"You deserve that I should kill you, it is true. By all the souls that hear me, by the souls of our dead parents, by the Madonna, who, with them, is shuddering in heaven at your crime, you deserve that I should kill you!"

"But Cesare would weep for me," taunted Laura, again mistress of herself.

"It is true," rejoined Anna, icily. "Go away then. Go at once."

"Good-bye, Anna."

"Good-bye, Laura."

Leisurely, collectedly, she turned her back upon her sister, and moved away, erect and supple in her white frock, with her light regular footstep. Her hand turned the knob of the door, but on the threshold she paused, involuntarily, and looked at Anna, who stood in the middle of the room with her head bowed, her cheeks colourless, her eyes expressionless, her lips violet and slightly parted, testifying to her fatigue. Laura's hesitation was but momentary. Shrugging her shoulders at that spectacle of sorrow, she closed the door behind her, and went off through the darkness to her own room.

Anna was alone. And within herself she was offering up thanks to the Madonna for having that night saved her from a terrible temptation. For, from the dreadful scene that had just passed, only one thought remained to her. She had besought her sister not to love Cesare any more, promising in exchange all the devotion of her soul and body; and Laura had thrice responded, obstinately, blindly, "I can't help it." Well, when for the third time she heard those words, a sudden, immense fury of jealousy had seized her; suddenly a great red cloud seemed to fall before her eyes, and the redness came from a wound in her sister's white throat, a wound which she had inflicted; and the pale girl lay at her feet lifeless, unable for ever to say again that she loved Cesare and would not cease to love him. Ah, for a minute, for a minute, murder had breathed in Anna's poor distracted heart, and she had wished to kill the daughter of her mother! Now, with spent eyes, feeling herself lost and dying at the bottom of an abyss, she uttered a deep prayer of thanksgiving to God, for that He had swept the red cloud away, for that He had allowed her to suffer without avenging herself. Slowly, slowly she sank upon her knees, she clasped her hands, she said over all the old simple prayers of her childhood, the holy prayers of innocence, praying that still, through all the hopeless misery that awaited her, she might ever be what she had been to-night, a woman capable of suffering everything, incapable of revenge. And in this pious longing her soul seemed to be lifted up, far above all earthly pain.

All her womanly goodness and weakness were mingled in her renunciation of revenge.

The violent energy which she had shown in her talk with Laura had given place to a mortal lassitude. She remained on her knees, and continued to murmur the words of her orisons, but now she no longer understood their meaning. Her head was whirling, as in the beginning of a swoon. She dragged herself with difficulty to her bed, and threw herself upon it, inert as a dead body, in utter physical exhaustion.

Laura had undone her. The whole long scene between them repeated itself over and over in her mind; again she passed from tears to anger, from jealousy to pleading affection; again she saw her sister's pure white face, and the cynical smile that disfigured it, and its hard incapacity for pity, fear, or contrition. Laura had overthrown her, conquered her, undone her. Anna had gone to her, strong in her outraged rights, strong in her offended love, strong in her knowledge of her sister's treachery; she had expected to see that proud brow bend before her, red with shame; she had expected to see those fair hands clasped and trembling, imploring pardon; she had expected to hear that clear voice utter words of penitence and promises of atonement. But far from that, far from accepting the punishment she had earned, the guilty woman had boldly defended her guilt; she had refused with fierce courage to give way; she had clung to her infamy, challenging her sister to do her worst. Anna understood that not one word that she had spoken had made the least impression upon Laura's heart, had stirred in it the faintest movement of generosity or affection; she understood that from beginning to end she had failed and blundered, knowing neither how to punish nor how to forgive.

"I did not kill her. She has beaten me!" she thought.

And yet Anna was in the right; and Laura, by all human and all moral law, was in the wrong. To love a married man, to love her sister's husband, almost her own brother! Anna was right before God, before mankind, before Cesare and Laura themselves. If, when her sister had refused to surrender her husband to her, she had killed her, no human being would have blamed her for it.

"And yet I did not kill her. She has beaten me!"

She tried to find the cause of her defeat, overwhelmed by the despair with which good people see wrong and injustice triumph. She sought for the cause of her defeat, but she could find none, none. She was right--according to all laws, human and divine, she was in the right; she alone was right. Oh, her agony was insupportable, more and more dreadful as she got farther from the fact, and could see it in its full hideousness, examine and analyse it in its full infamy.

"Beaten, beaten, beaten! bitterly worsted and overwhelmed!"

For the third time in her life she had been utterly defeated. She had not known how to defend herself; she had not known how to assert her rights, and conquer. On that fatal day at Pompeii, when Giustino Morelli had abandoned her; on that fatal night at Sorrento, when Cesare Dias had proposed his mephistophelian bargain to her, whereby she was to renounce love, dignity, and her every prerogative as a woman and a wife; at Pompeii and at Sorrento she had been worsted by those who were in the wrong, by Giustino Morelli who could not love, by Cesare Dias who would not.

And now again to-night--to-night, for the third time--betrayed by her husband and her sister--she had not known how to conquer. At Naples, as at Pompeii, as at Sorrento, she who was in the right had been defeated by one who was in the wrong.

"But why? why?" she asked herself, in despair.

She did not know. It was contrary to all reason and all justice. She could only see the fact, clear, cruel, inexorable.

It was destiny. A secret power fought against her, and baffled every effort she attempted. It was a fatality which she bore within herself, a fatality which it was useless to resist. All she could wish for now was that the last word might be spoken soon.

"I must seek the last word," she thought.

She rose from her bed, and looked at the clock. It was four in the morning.

She went to her writing-desk, and, leaning her head upon her hand, tried to think what she had come there to do. Then she took a sheet of paper, and wrote a few words upon it. But when she read them over, they displeased her; she tore the paper up, and threw it away. She wrote and tore up three more notes; at last she was contented with this one:

"Cesare, I must say something to you at once. As soon as you read these words, no matter at what hour of the night or morning, come to my room.--ANNA."

She sealed the note in an envelope, and addressed it to her husband. She left her room, to go to his. The door was locked; she could see no light, hear no sound within. She slipped the letter through the crack above the threshold.

"Cesare shall speak the last word," she thought.

She returned to her own room, and threw herself upon her bed to watch and wait for him.

V.

Anna got up and opened her window, to let in the sun, but it was a grey morning, grey in sky and sea. Lead-coloured clouds rested on the hill of Posillipo; and the wide Neapolitan landscape looked as if it had been covered with ashes. Few people were in the streets; and the palm in the middle of the Piazza Vittoria waved its long branches languidly in the wintry breeze.

Her eyes were burning and her eyelids were heavy. She went into her dressing-room and bathed her face in cold water. Then she combed her hair and fastened it up with a big gold pin. And then she put on a gown of black wool, richly trimmed with jet, a morning street costume. Was she going out? She did not know. She dressed herself in obedience to the necessity which women feel at certain hours of the day to occupy themselves with their toilets. But when she came to fasten her brooch, a clover leaf set with black pearls, that Laura had given her for a wedding-present, she discovered that one of the pearls was gone. The clover-leaf brings luck, but now this one was broken, and its power was gone.

Eleven o'clock struck, and somebody tapped discreetly at the door. She could not find her voice, to answer.

The knock was repeated.

"Come in," she said feebly.

Cesare entered, calm and composed, carrying his hat and ebony walking-stick in his hand.

"Good-morning. Are you going out?" he asked tranquilly.

"No. I don't know," she answered, with a vague gesture.

All her nerves were tingling, as she looked at the traitor's handsome, wasted face, a face so quiet and smiling.

"You had something to say to me?" he reminded her, wrinkling his brow a little.

"Yes."

"I came home late. I didn't want to disturb you," he said, producing a cigarette, and asking permission with a glance to light it.

"You would not have disturbed me."

"I suppose it's nothing of much importance."

"It's a thing of great importance, Cesare."

"As usual," he said, with the shadow of a smile.

"I swear to you by the memory of my mother that nothing is more important."

"Goodness gracious! Act three, scene four!" he exclaimed ironically.

"Scene last," she said, dully, tearing a few beads from her dress, and fingering them.

"So much the better, if we are near the end. The play was rather long, my dear." He was tapping his boot with his walking-stick.

"We will cut it short, Cesare. I have a favour to ask of you. Will you grant it?"

"Ask, oh lovely lady; and in spite of the fact that last night you closed your door upon me, here I am, ready to serve you."

"I have a favour to ask, Cesare."

"Ask it, then, before I go out."

"I want to make a long journey with you--to be gone a year."

"A second honeymoon? The like was never known."

"A journey of a year, do you understand? Take me as your travelling companion, your friend, your servant. For a year, away from here, far away."

"Taking with us our sister, our governess, our dog, our cat, and the whole menagerie?"

"We two alone," she said.

"Ah," said he.

"What is your decision?"

"I will think about it."

"No. You must decide at once."

"What's the hurry? Are we threatened with an epidemic?"

"Decide now."

"Then I decide--no," he said.

"And why?" she asked, turning pale.

"Because I won't."

"Tell me your reason."

"I don't wish to travel."

"You have always enjoyed travelling."

"Well, I enjoy it no more. I am tired, I am old, I will stay at home."

"I implore you, let us go away, far from here."

"But why do you want to go away?"

"Listen. Don't ask me. Say yes."

"Why do you want to go away, Anna?"

"Because, I want to go. Do me the favour."

"Is my lady flying from some danger that threatens her virtue? From some unhappy love?"

"There's something more than my virtue in danger. I am flying from an unhappy love, Cesare," she said gravely, shutting her eyes.

"Heavens! And am I to mix myself up in these tragical complications? No, Anna, no, I sha'n't budge."

"Is there no prayer that can move you. Will you always answer no?"

"I shall always say no."

"Even if I begged you at the point of death?"

"Fortunately your health is excellent," he rejoined, smiling slightly.

"We may all die--from one moment to another," she answered, simply. "Let us go away together, Cesare."

"I have said no, and I mean no, Anna. Don't try to change me. You know it's useless."

"Then will you grant me another favour? This one you will grant."

"Let's hear it."

"Let us go and live alone in the palace in Via Gerolimini."

"In that ugly house?"

"Let us live there alone together."

"Alone? How do you mean?"

"Alone, you and I."

"Without Laura?"

"Without Laura."

"Ah," he said.

She looked at him pleadingly, and in her brown eyes he must have been able to read the sorrowful truth. But he had no pity; he would not spare her the bitter confession of it.

"Be frank," he said, with some severity. "You wish to separate from your sister!"

"Yes."

"And why? Tell me the reason."

"I can't tell you. I wish to separate from Laura."

"When?"

"At once. To-day."

"Indeed? Have you had a quarrel? I'll be peacemaker."

"I doubt it," she said, with a strange smile.

"If you'll tell me what you've quarrelled about, I'll make peace between you."

"But why do you ask these questions and make these offers? I want to separate from my sister. That is all."

"And I don't wish to," he said, looking coldly into his wife's eyes.

"You don't wish to be parted from Laura!" she cried, feeling her feet giving way beneath her.

"I don't indeed."

"Then I will go away myself, she cried, her brain reeling.

"Do as you like," he answered, calmly.

"Oh, heaven help me," she murmured, under her breath, staggering, losing all her strength.

"Now we have come to the fainting-fit," said Cesare, looking at her scornfully, "and so will end this scene of stupid jealousy."

"What jealousy! Who has spoken of jealousy?" she asked haughtily.

"Must I inform you that you have done nothing else for the past half-hour! It strikes me that you have lost the little good sense you ever had. And I give you notice that I'm not going to make myself ridiculous on your account."

"You wish to stay with Laura!"

"Not only I, but you too. For the sake of the world's opinion, as well as for our own sakes, we can't desert the girl. She's been confided to our protection. It would be a scandal which I'll not permit you to make. If I have to suffer a hundred deaths, I'll not allow you to make a scandal. Do you understand!"

She looked at him, changing colour, feeling that her last hope was escaping her.

"And then," he went on, "I don't know your reasons for not wishing to live any longer with your sister. She's good, she's well-behaved, she's serious; she gives you no trouble; you have no right to find fault with her. It's one of your whims--it's your everlasting desire to be unhappy. Anyhow, your idiotic caprice will soon enough be gratified. Laura will soon be married."

"Do you wish Laura to marry!"

"I wish it earnestly."

"You'll be glad of it!"

"Most glad," he answered, smiling.

Ah, in the days of her womanly innocence, before her mind had been opened to the atrocious revelations of their treason, she would not have understood the import of that answer and that smile; but she knew now the whole depth of human wickedness. He smiled, and curled his handsome black moustaches. Anna lost her head.

"Then you are more infamous than Laura," she cried.

"The vocabulary of Othello," he cried, calmly. "But, you know, it has been proved that Othello was epileptic."

"And he killed Desdemona," said Anna.

"Does it strike you that I look like Desdemona?"

"Not you, not you."

"And who then?"

"Laura."

"Your folly is becoming dangerous, Anna."

"Imminently, terribly dangerous, Cesare."

"Fortunately you take it out in words, not in actions," he concluded, smiling.

She wrung her hands.

"Last night Laura owed her life to a miracle," she said.

"But what has been going on here?" he exclaimed, agitated, rising to his feet. "And where is Laura?"

"Oh, fear nothing, fear nothing on her account. I've not harmed her. She's alive. She's well. She's very well. No wrinkle troubles her beauty, no anxiety disturbs her mind. Fear nothing. She is a sacred person. Your love protects her. Listen, Cesare; she was here last night alone in this room with me; and I had over her the right given me by heaven, given me by men; and I _did not kill her_."

Cesare had turned slightly pale; that was all.

"And if it is permitted to talk in your own high-sounding rhetoric, what was the ground of your right to kill her?" he asked, looking at the handle of his walking-stick, and emphasising the disdainful _you_.[F]

"Laura has betrayed me. She's in love with you."

"Nothing but this was lacking! That Laura should be in love with me! I'm glad to hear it. You are sure of it? It's an important matter for my vanity. Are you sure of it?"

"Don't jeer at me, Cesare. You don't realise what you are doing. Don't smile like that. Don't drive me to extremes."

"There are two of you in love with me--for I suppose you still love me, don't you? It's a family misfortune. But since you both adore me, it's probably not my fault."

"Cesare, Cesare!"

"And confess that I did nothing to win you."

"You have betrayed me, Cesare. You are in love with Laura."

"Are you sure of it?"

"Sure, Cesare."

"But bear in mind that certainties are somewhat rare in this world. For the past few minutes I've been examining myself, to discover if indeed I had in my soul a guilty passion for Laura. Perhaps I am mad about her, without knowing it. But you, who are an expert in these affairs, you are sure of it. Have the goodness to explain to me, oh, passionate Signora Dias, in what manner I have betrayed you, loving your sister. Describe to me the whole blackness of my treason. Tell me in what my--infamy--consists. Wasn't it infamy you called it? I'm not learned in the language of the heart."

"Oh, God! oh, God!" sobbed Anna, her face buried in her hands, horrified at what she heard and saw.

"I hope we've not to pass the morning invoking the Lord, the Virgin, and the Saints. What do you suppose they care for your idiocy, Anna? They are too wise; and I should be wiser if I cared nothing for it, either. But when your rhetoric casts a slur upon others, it can't be overlooked. I beg you, Signora Dias, to do your husband the kindness of stating your accusations precisely. Set forth the whole atrocity of his conduct. I fold my hands, and sit here on this chair like a king on his judgment-seat. I wait, only adding that you have already used up a good deal of my patience."

"But has Laura told you nothing?"

"Nothing, my dear lady."

"Where is she?"

"She's gone to church, I hear."

"Quietly gone to church?"

"Do you fancy that all women dance in perpetual convulsions to the tune of their sentiments, Signora Dias? No, for the happiness of men, no. Our dear and wise Minerva has gone to mass, for to-day is Sunday."

"With that horrible sin on her conscience! Does she think she can lie even to God? But it's a sacrilege."

"Ah, we're to have a mystical drama, a passion-play now, are we? Dear lady, I see that you have nothing to say to me, and I make my adieux."

He started to go, but she barred the way to him.

"Don't go, Cesare; don't leave me. Since you will have it so, you shall hear from my lips, though they tremble with horror in pronouncing it, the story of your infamy. I will repeat it to you to-day as I repeated it to Laura last night; and I hope it may burn in your heart as it burns in mine. Ah, you laugh; you have the boldness to laugh. You treat this talk as a joke. You sneer at my anger. You would like to get away from me. I annoy you. My voice wearies you. And what I have to say to you will perhaps bring a blush of shame even to your face, corrupt man that you are. But you cannot leave me. You are obliged to remain here. You must give me an account of your betrayal. Ah, don't smile, don't smile; that will do no good; your smile can't turn me aside. I won't allow you to leave me. Remember, Cesare, remember what you did last evening. Remember and be ashamed. Remember how cruel, how wicked, how atrocious it was, what happened last evening between you and my sister. Under my eyes Cesare, and for long minutes, so that I could have no doubt. I could not imagine that I was mad or dreaming. I saw it all, my ears heard the words you spoke, the sound of your kisses, your long kisses. I could not doubt. Oh, how horrible it is for a woman who loves to see the proof that she is betrayed! What new, unknown capacities for sorrow open in her soul! Oh, what have you done to me, Cesare, you whom I adored! You and my sister Laura, what have you done to me!"

She fell into a chair, crushing her temples between her hands.

"Is it your habit to listen at doors? It's not considered good form," said Cesare coldly.

"Do you wish me to die, Cesare? How could you forget that I loved you, that I had given you my youth, my beauty, all my heart, all my soul, that I adored you with every breath, that you alone were the reason for my being? You have forgotten all this, forgotten that I live only for you, my love--you have forgotten it?"

"These sentiments do you honour, though they're somewhat exaggerated. Buy a book of manners, and learn that it's not the thing to listen at doors."

"It was my right to listen, do you understand? I was defending my love, my happiness, my all; but the terrible thing I saw has destroyed for ever everything I cared for."

"Did you really see such a terrible thing?" he asked, smiling.

"If I should live a thousand years, nothing could blot it from my mind. Oh, I shall die, I shall die; I can only forget it by dying."

"You are suffering from cerebral dilatation. It was nothing but a harmless scene of gallantry--it was a jest, Anna."

"Laura said that she loved you. I heard her."

"Of course, girls of her age always say they're in love."

"She kissed you, Cesare. I saw her."

"And what of that? Girls of her age are fond of kissing. They're none the worse for it."

"She was in your arms, Cesare, and for so long a time that to me it seemed a century."

"It's not a bad place, you know, Signora Dias," he responded, smiling.

"Oh, how low, how monstrous! And you, Cesare, you told her that you loved her. I heard you."

"A man always loves a little the woman that is with him. Besides, I couldn't tell her that I hated her; it would scarcely have been polite. I know my book of manners. There's at least one member of our family who preserves good form."

"Cesare, you kissed her."

"I'd defy you to have done otherwise, if you'd been a man. You don't understand these matters."

"On the lips, Cesare."

"It's my habit. It's not a custom of my invention, either. It's rather old. I suspect it took its rise with Adam and Eve."

"But she's a young girl, an innocent young girl, Cesare."

"Girls are not so innocent as they used to be, Anna. I assure you the world is changing."

"She is my sister, Cesare."

"That's a circumstance quite without importance. Relationship counts for nothing."

She looked at him with an expression of intense disgust.

"You, then, Cesare," she said, "have no sense of the greatness of this infamy. She at least, Laura, the other guilty person, turned pale, was troubled, trembled with passion and with terror. You--no! Here you have been for an hour absolutely imperturable; not a shade of emotion has crossed your brazen face; your voice hasn't changed; you feel no fear, no love, no shame; you are not even surprised. She at least shuddered and cried out; she is an Acquaviva! It is true that, though she saw my anger and my despair, she had neither pity nor compunction, but her passion for you, at least, was undisguised. She had feeling, strength, will. But you--no. You, like her, indeed, could see me weep my heart out, could see me convulsed by the most unendurable agony, and have not an ounce of pity for me; but your hardness does not spring, like hers, from love; no, no; from icy indifference. You are as heartless as a tombstone. She, at least, has the courage, the audacity, the effrontery of her wickedness; she declares boldly that she loves you, that she adores you, that she will never cease to love you, that she will always adore you. She is my sister. In her heart there is the same canker that is in mine--a canker from which we are both dying. You--no! Love? Passion? Not even an illusion. Nothing but a harmless scene of gallantry! A half-hour of amusing flirtation, without consequence! But what does it mean, then, to say that we love? Is it a lie that a man feels justified in telling any woman? And what is a kiss? A fugitive contact of the lips, immediately forgotten? So many false kisses are given in the course of a day and night! Nonsense, triviality, rubbish! It's bad form to spy at doors; its exaggeration to call a thing infamous; it's madness to be jealous. And the sin that you have committed, instead of originating in passion, which might in some degree excuse it, you reduce to an every-day vulgarity, a commonplace indecency; my sister becomes a vulgar flirt, you a vulgar seducer, and I a vulgar termagant screaming out her morbid jealousy. The whole affair falls into the mud. My sister's guilty love, your caprice, my despair, all are in the mud, among the most disgusting human garbage, where there is no spiritual light, no cry of sorrow, where everything is permissible, where the man expires and the beast triumphs. Do you know what you are, Cesare?"

"No, I don't know. But if you can tell me, I shall be indebted for the favour."

"You are a man without heart, without conscience; a soul without greatness and without enthusiasm; you are a lump of flesh, exhausted by unworthy pleasures and morbid desires. You are a ruin, in heart, in mind, in senses; you belong to the class of men who are rotten; you fill me with fright and with pity. I did not know that I was giving my hand to a corpse scented with heliotrope, that I was uniting my life to the mummy of a gentleman, whose vitiated senses could not be pleased by a young, beautiful, and loving wife, but must crave her sister, her pure, chaste, younger sister! Have you ever loved, Cesare? Have you ever for a moment felt the immensity of real love? In your selfishness you have made an idol of yourself, an idol without greatness. A thing without viscera, without pulses, without emotion! You are corrupt, perverted, depraved, even to the point of betraying your wife who adores you, with her sister whom you do not love! Ah, you are a coward, a dastard; that's what you are, a dastard!"

She wrung her hands and beat her temples, pacing the room as a madwoman paces her cell. But not a tear fell from her eyes, not a sob issued from her breast.

He stood still, his face impenetrable; not one of her reproaches had brought a trace of colour to it. She threw herself upon a sofa, exhausted; but her eyes still burned and her lips trembled.

"Now that you have favoured me with so amiable a definition of myself," said he, "permit me to attempt one of you."

His tone was so icy, he pronounced the words so slowly, that Anna knew he was preparing a tremendous insult. Instinctively, obeying the blind anger of her love, she repeated, "You are a dastard; that's what you are, a dastard."

"My dear, you are a bore--that's what _you_ are."

"What do you say?" she asked, not understanding.

"You're a bore, my dear."

The insult was so atrocious, that for the first time in the course of their talk her eyes filled with tears, and a sigh burst from her lips--lips that were purple, like those of a dying child. It seemed as if something had broken in her heart.

"Nothing but a bore. I don't employ high-sounding words, you see. I speak the plain truth. You're a bore."

Another sigh, a sigh of insupportable physical pain, as if the hard word _bore_ had cut her flesh, like a knife.

"You flatter yourself that you're a woman of grand passions," he went on, after looking at his watch, and giving a little start of surprise to see how much time he had wasted here. "No? You flatter yourself that you're a creature of impulse, a woman with a fate, a woman destined to a tragic end; and to satisfy this notion, you complicate and embroil and muddle up your own existence, and mortally bore those who are about you. With your rhetoric, your tears, your sobs, your despair, your interminable letters, your livid face and your gray lips, you're enough to bore the very saints in heaven."

He pretended not to see her imploring eyes, which had suddenly lost their anger, and were craving mercy.

"Remember all the stupidities you've committed in the past four or five years," he went on, "and all the annoyance you've given us. You were a handsome girl, rich, with a good name. You might have married any one of a dozen men of your own age, your own rank, gentlemen, who were in love with you. That would have been sensible, orderly; you would have been as happy as happy can be. But what! Anna Acquaviva, the romantic heroine, condescend to be happy! No, no. That were beneath her! So you had to fancy yourself in love with a beggar whom you couldn't marry."

She made a gesture, as if to defend Giustino Morelli.

"Oh, did you really love him? Thanks for the compliment; you're charming this morning. Passion, inequality of position, drama, flight into Egypt, fortunately without a child--forgive the impropriety, but it escaped me. Morelli, chancing to be a decent fellow, Morelli ran away, poor devil! and our heroine treated herself to the luxury of a mortal illness. We, Laura, I, everybody, were bored by the flight, bored by the illness. The lesson was a severe one, and most women would have been cured of their inclination towards the theatrical, as well as of their scarlet fever. But not so Anna Acquaviva. It didn't matter to her that she had risked her reputation, her honour; it didn't matter to her that she had staked the name of her family; all this only excited her imagination. And, behold, she begins her second romance, her second drama, her second tragedy, and enter upon the scene, to be bored to death, Signor Cesare Dias!"

"Oh, Holy Virgin, help me," murmured Anna, pressing her hands to her temples.

"Dramatic love for Cesare Dias, an old man, a man who has never gone in for passion, who doesn't wish to go in for it, who is tired of all such bothersome worries. Anna Acquaviva gives herself up to an unrequited love, 'one of the most desolating experiences of the soul'--that's a phrase I found in one of your letters. Desolation, torture, spasms, despair, bitterness, these are the words which our ill-fated heroine, Anna Acquaviva, employs to depict her condition to herself and to others. And Cesare Dias, who had arranged his life in a way not to be bored and not to bore anyone, Cesare Dias, who is an entirely common and ordinary person, happy in his mediocrity, suddenly finds himself against his will dragged upon the scene as hero! He is the man of mysteries, the man who will not love or who loves another, the superior man, the neighbour of the stars. And nevertheless we find a means of boring him."

"Ah, Cesare, Cesare, Cesare!" she said, beseeching compassion.

"Imbecile ought to be added to the name of Cesare Dias. That's the title which I best deserve. Only an imbecile--and I was one for half-an-hour--could have ceded to your sentimental hysterics. I was an imbecile. But to let you die, to complete your tragedy of unrequited love----"

"Oh, why didn't you let me die?" she cried.

"I believe it would have been as well for many of us. What a comfort for you, dear heroine, to die consumed by an unhappy passion! Gaspara Stampa, Properzia de' Rossi, and other illustrious ladies of ancient times, with whose names you have favoured me in your letters, would have found their imitator. I'm sure you would have died blessing me."

Bowing her head, she sighed deeply, as if she were indeed dying.

"Instead of letting you die, I went through the dismal farce of marrying you. And I assure you that I've never ceased to regret it. I regretted it the very minute after I'd made you my idiotic proposal. Ah, well, every man has his moments of inexplicable weakness, and he pays dearly for them. And marriage, alas, hasn't proved a sentimental comedy. With your pretentions to passion, to love, to mutual adoration, you've bored me even more than I expected."

"But what, then, is marriage from your point of view?" she cried.

"A bothersome obligation, when a man marries a woman like you."

"You would have preferred my sister?" she asked, exasperated. But she was at once sorry for this vulgarity; and he speedily punished it.

"Yes, I should have preferred your sister. She's not a bore. I find her extremely diverting."

"She loved you from the beginning," she says. "A pity she didn't tell you so."

"A pity. I assure you I should have married her."

"Ah, very well."

But suddenly she raised her eyes to her husband; and at the sight of that beloved person her courage failed her. She took his hand, and said, "Ah, Cesare, Cesare, you are right. But I loved you, I loved you, and you have deceived me with my sister."

"Signora Dias, you have rather a feeble memory," he returned, icily, drawing his hand away.

"How do you mean?"

"I mean that you easily forget. We are face to face; you can't lie. Have I ever told you that I loved you?"

"No--never," she admitted, closing her eyes agonised to have to admit it.

"Have I ever promised to love you?"

"No--never."

"Well, then, according to the laws of love, I've not deceived you, my dear Anna. My heart has never belonged to you, therefore it's not been taken from you. I promised nothing, therefore I owe you nothing."

"It's true. You're right, Cesare," she said; draining this new cup of bitterness that he had distilled for her.

"Perhaps you will speak to me of the laws of the land. Very good; according to the law a man and wife are required to be mutually faithful. A magistrate would say that I had betrayed you. But consider a little. Make an effort of memory, Anna, and recall the agreement I proposed to you that evening at Sorrento, before committing my grand blunder. I told you that I wished to remain absolutely free, free as a bachelor; and you consented. Is it true or not true?"

"It is true. I consented."

"I told you that I would tolerate no interference on your part with my relations with other women; and remember, Anna, you consented. Is that true or untrue?"

"It is true," she said, feeling that she was falling into an abyss.

"You see, therefore, that neither according to the laws of love nor according to the laws of marriage have I betrayed you. And if you had a conscience, to adopt your own phraseology, if you had the least loyalty, you would at once confess that I have not betrayed you. You accepted the whole bargain. I am free in heart, and at liberty to do as I like. I have not betrayed you. Confess it."

"Cesare, Cesare, be human, be Christian; don't require me to say that."

"Tragedies are one thing, and truth is another, Anna. I desire to establish the fact that I haven't betrayed you, my dear. For what I did last night, for what I may have done on any other night, for what I may do any night in the future, I have your own permission. Confess it."

"I can't say that, do you understand?" she cried. "Oh, you are always in the right; you always know how to put yourself in the right. You are right in your selfishness, in your perfidy, in your wickedness, in your frightful corruption; you were right in proposing that disgraceful bargain to me, which I was not ashamed to accept, and which you to-day so justly and so appropriately remind me of. But I believed that to love, to adore a man as I loved and adored you, would be a charm to conquer with; and I have lost. For you are stronger than I; indifference is stronger than love; selfishness is stronger than passion. Generous abandonment cannot overcome the refined calculation of a corrupt man. I am wrong, I alone, I confess it--since I loved you to the point of dying for you, since I imagined that that was enough, since I had in my soul the divine hope of winning you by my love. I am wrong, I confess it; yes, I confess it. I cannot love nor hate nor live. I am nothing but a bore, a superfluous person, and a tiresome; it is true; it is true. Say it again."

"If you wish it, I will."

"You are right. You are always right. I have done nothing but blunder. I have always obeyed the mad impulses of my heart. I fled from my home. I ought not to have loved you, and I loved you. I loved you; I have bored you; and I myself, of my free will, gave you permission to betray me. You are the most vicious man I know. You're unredeemed by a thought or a feeling. You horrify me. Under the same roof with your wife, you have committed an odious sin--a sin that would make the worst men shudder. And I can't punish you, because I consented to it; because I debased the dignity of my love before you; because indeed I am a cowardly and infamous creature. See how right you are! You have sinned, but so far as I am concerned you are innocent. I am infamous and cowardly, because I ought to have died rather than accept that loathsome bargain. Forgive me if I have upbraided you. I'll ask Laura's pardon too. No human being is soiled with an infamy so great as mine. Forgive me."

Perhaps he felt in these words the confusion of madness; perhaps he saw the light of madness in her eyes. But he was unmoved. She was a woman who had led him into committing a folly, who had bored him, and, what was more, who would like to continue to bore him in the future. He was unmoved. He was glad to have got the better of her in this struggle. He was unmoved. He thought it time to leave her, if he would retain his advantage.

"Good-bye, Anna," he said, rising.

"Don't go away, don't go away," she cried, throwing herself before him.

"Do you imagine that this duet is pleasing?" he asked, drawing on his gloves. "For the rest, we've said all there is to say. I can't think you have any more insults to favour me with."

"You hate me, do you?"

"No, I don't hate you exactly."

"Don't go away. Don't go away. I must tell you something very serious."

"Good-bye, Anna," he repeated, moving towards the door.

"Cesare, if you go away, I shall do something desperate," she cried, convulsively tearing her hair.

"You'd be incapable. To do anything desperate one must have talent. And you're a fool," he replied, smiling ironically.

"Cesare, if you go away, I shall die."

"Bah, bah, you'll not die. To die one must have courage." And he opened the door and went out.

She ran to the threshold. He was already at a distance. She heard the street door close behind him. For a few minutes she stood there, fearing to move lest she should fall; then mechanically she turned back. She went to her looking-glass, repaired the disorder of her hair, and put on a hat, a black veil, and a sealskin cloak. She forgot nothing. Her pocket-handkerchief was in her muff; in her hand she carried her card-case of carved Japanese ivory.

At last she left her room, and entered her husband's. A servant was putting it in order; but, seeing his mistress, he bowed and took himself off. She was alone there, in the big brown chamber, in the gray winter daylight. She went to her husband's desk, and sat down before it, as if she were going to write. But, after a moment's thought, she did not write. She opened a drawer, took something from it, and concealed it in her pocket.

After that, she passed through the house and out into the street.

She crossed the Piazza Vittoria, and entered the Villa Nazionale. Children were playing by the fountain, and she stopped for a moment to look at them. Twice she made the tour of the Villa; then she looked at her watch; then she seated herself on one of the benches. There were very few people abroad. The damp earth was covered with dead leaves.

She fixed her eyes upon the dial of her watch, counting the minutes and the seconds. All at once she put her hand into her pocket, and felt the thing that she had hidden there.

Anna rose. It was two o'clock.

She left the Villa, walking towards the Chiatamone. Before the door of a little house in the Via del Chiatamone she stopped. She hesitated for a moment; then she lifted the bronze knocker, and let it fall.

The door was opened by Luigi Caracciolo.

He did not speak. He took her hand, and drew her into the house.

They crossed two antechambers, hung with old tapestries, ornamented with ancient and modern arms, and with big Delft vases filled with growing palms, a smoking-room furnished with rustic Swiss chairs and tables, and entered a drawing-room. The curtains were drawn, the lamps lighted. The floor and the walls were covered with Oriental carpets; the room was full of beautiful old Italian furniture, statues, pictures, bronzes. There were many flowers about, red and white roses, subtly perfumed.

Caracciolo took a bunch of roses, and gave them to Anna.

"Dear Anna--my dear love," he said.

A faint colour came to her cheeks.

"What is it? Tell me, Anna. Dear one, dear one!"

"Don't speak to me like that," she said.

"Do I offend you? I can't think that I offend you--I who feel for you the deepest tenderness, the most absolute devotion."

He took her hands.

"It is dark here," she said.

"The day was so sad, the daylight was so melancholy. I have waited for you so many hours, Anna."

"I have come, you see."

"Thank you for having remembered your faithful servant." And delicately he kissed her gloved hand.

"Why not open the curtains a little?" she asked.

He drew aside his curtains, and let in the ashen light. She went to the window, and looked out upon the sea.

"Anna, Anna, come away. Somebody might see you."

"It doesn't matter."

"But I can't allow you to compromise yourself, Anna; I love you too much."

"I have come here to compromise myself," she said.

"Then--you love me a little?" he demanded, trying to draw her away from the window.

She did not answer. She sat down in an arm-chair.

"Tell me that you love me a little, Anna."

"I don't love you."

"Dear Anna, dear Anna," he murmured with his caressing voice, "how can I believe you, since you are here. Tell me that you love me a little. For three years I have waited for that word. Dear Anna, sweet Anna, you know that I have adored you for so long a time. Anna, Anna!"

"What has happened was bound to happen," she said.

"Anna, I conjure you,[G] tell me that you love me."

She shuddered as she heard him use the familiar pronoun.

"Do you love me?"

"I don't know. I know nothing."

"Dear one, dear one," he murmured, trembling with hope, in an immense transport of love.

He drew nearer to her and kissed her on the cheek.

A cry of pain burst from her, and she sprang up, horrified, terrified, and tried to leave the room.

"Oh, for mercy's sake, forgive me. Don't go away. Anna, Anna, forgive me if I have offended you. I love you so! If you go away I shall die."

"People don't die for such slight things."

"People die of love."

"Yes. But one must have courage to die."

"Don't let us talk of these dismal things. My love, we mustn't talk of things that will sadden you. Your beautiful face is troubled. Tell me that you forgive me. Do you forgive me?"

"I forgive you."

"I don't believe it. You don't forgive me. You love another."

"No, no--no other."

"And Cesare?"

But scarcely had he spoken the fatal name when he saw his error. Her eyes blazed; she trembled from head to foot, in a nervous convulsion.

"Listen," she said. "If you have a heart, if you have any pity, if you wish me to stay here with you, never name him again, never name him."

"You are right." But then he added, "And yet you loved him, you love him still."

"No. I love no one any more."

"Why would you not accept me when I proposed for you?"

"Because."

"Why did you marry that old man?"

"Because."

"And now why do you love him? Why do you love him?"

"I don't know."

"You see, you do love him," he cried in despair.

"Oh, God, oh, God!" she sobbed.

"Oh, I am a fool. Forgive me, forgive me. But I love you, and I lose my head. I love you, and I am desperate. And I need to know if you still love him. You will always love him? Is it so?"

"Till death," she said, with a strange look and accent.

"Say it again."

"Till death," she repeated, with the same strange intonation.

They were silent.

Luigi Caracciolo put his arm round her waist, and drew her slowly towards him.

Her eyes were fixed and void. She did not feel his arms about her. She did not feel his kisses. He kissed her hair, he kissed her sweet white throat, he kissed her little rosy ear. Anna was absorbed in a desperate meditation, far from all human things. He kissed her face, her eyes, her lips; she did not know it. But suddenly she felt his embrace become closer, stronger; she heard his voice change, it was no longer tender and caressing, it was fervid with tumultuous passion, it uttered confused delirious words. Silently, looking at him with burning eyes, she tried to disengage herself.

"Let me go," she said.

"Anna, Anna, I love you so--I have loved you so long!"

"Let me go, let me go!"

"You are my adored one--I adore you above all things."

"Let me go. You horrify me."

He let her go.

"But what have you come here for?" he asked, sorrowfully.

"I have come to commit an infamy."

"Anna, Anna, you are killing me!"

She looked at him fixedly.

"What is it, Anna? Something is troubling you, and you won't tell me what it is. My poor friend! You have come here with an anguish in your heart, wishing to escape from it; you have come here to weep; and I have behaved like a brute, a blackguard."

"No, you are good, I shall remember you," and she gave him her hand.

"Don't go away. Tell me first what it is. Tell me what you came for. Tell me, dearest Anna."

"It's too long a story, too long," she said, as if in a dream, passing her hand over her brow. "And now I must go, I must go."

"No, stop here, talk to me, weep. It will do you good."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"My minutes are numbered. You'll understand some day--to-morrow. Now I must go."

"Anna, how can I let you go like this? You have come here to be comforted, and I have treated you shamefully. Forgive me."

"You are not to blame, not in the least."

"But what is it that you are in trouble about, Anna? Who has been making you miserable, my poor fond soul? Whose fault is it? Who is to blame? Cesare?"

"No, I am to blame, I only."

"And Cesare--you admit it."

"No."

"Cesare is an infamous scoundrel, and I know it," he exclaimed.

"It is I who am infamous."

"I don't believe you. I should believe no one who said that, Anna."

"I must be infamous, since I alone am unhappy. I must go."

"Will you come back?--to-morrow? Anna, you are so sad, you are in such distress, I can't let you go."

"No one can detain me, no one."

"Anna, forget that I have spoken to you of love."

"I have forgotten it. Good-bye."

"You musn't go like this. You are too much agitated."

"No, I am calm. Listen, will you do me a favour? You repeated some verses to me one evening at Sorrento--some French verses--do you remember?"

"Yes. Baudelaire's '_Harmonie du Soir_,'" he answered, surprised by her question.

"Have you the volume?"

"Yes."

"Take it, and copy that poem for me. Afterwards I will say good-bye."

He went into his library and brought back _Les Fleurs du Mal_. He seated himself at his writing-table, and looked at Anna. There was an expression of such immense sorrow in her eyes, that he faltered, and asked, "Shall I write?"

She bowed her head. While he was writing the first lines, Anna turned her back to him. She put her hand into her pocket and brought forth a little shining object of ivory and steel. He in a low voice repeated the verse he was writing--"_Valse mélancolique et langoureux vertige_"--when suddenly there was the report of a pistol, and a little cloud of smoke rose towards the ceiling.

Anna had shot herself through the heart, and fallen to the floor. Her little gloved hand held the revolver that she had taken from the drawer of her husband's desk. Luigi Caracciolo stood rooted to the carpet, believing that he must be mad.

So died Anna Acquaviva, innocent.

FOOTNOTES:

[F] _Voi_, instead of the more familiar _tu_, which he had previously employed.

[G] Having hitherto used the formal _voi_, he now uses the intimate _tu_.

_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. _London & Edinburgh._

* * * * *

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants. For those words, the variant more frequently used was retained. In some cases there was no predominant variant. The hyphenated variant was chosen in those cases.

The name 'Björnstjerne Björnson' was changed to 'Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson'.

Obvious punctuation and printing errors, which were not detected during the printing of the original book, have been corrected.

The original book did not have a Table of Contents. One was added after the Introduction.