Sophy thought this over. She felt that she could not refuse, and yet she hesitated. But she knew that Barti had returned. She was sure that it was about the divorce that Amaldi wished to talk with her. What had Barti said? Was the divorce in Switzerland impossible, after all? And as this doubt came to her she knew for the first time how much she really loved Amaldi. The dreadful sinking of her heart when she faced the thought that he might not be able to get free made her decide at once to go with him the next day. And she would not take Bobby with her this time. He was all agog over a lesson in rowing that Lorenzo, the first gondoliere, was to give him to-morrow. She would keep him with her until she and Amaldi started at twelve o'clock; then he and Rosa could spend the afternoon with Lorenzo.

She sent word to Amaldi by the messenger who brought his note that she would be ready to go with him next day at noon.

He did not tell her of what Barti had said, and she did not ask him until they were alone in the garden of Villa Rosalia.

When he told her about the possible alternative of Hungary, she gave a cry of pain.

"I can't bear it.... I can't bear it that you should make such sacrifices!..." she stammered.

"When a man loves as I love you, there aren't any sacrifices," said Amaldi.

"Ah, don't talk that way!" she urged. "As if I didn't know what it all means to you...."

"I doubt if you know what _you_ mean to me ... quite," he answered.

The smothered pa.s.sion and sorrow in his voice shook her to the heart.

She tried to speak, and began to cry.

"Forgive me ... forgive me!" she sobbed. "I used to be so proud of not crying. It's the tragedy of it all.... Our love is such a tragedy!..."

Amaldi looked at her a moment, his face set. Then with a quick, almost violent, gesture he took her in his arms. "You shall not say that our love is a tragedy...." he muttered. But she sobbed on:

"It is ... it is!... Oh, why couldn't we have known each other ... from the first!..."

"But you love me ... now?"

"Oh, you know it ... you know it!..."

He put his hand up suddenly and turned her face to his. It gave him a strange thrill to feel her warm tears on his hand. He looked down into her eyes, and there was something imperious and fateful in this look.

".... _Really_ love me?" he said.

Her "Yes" came in a whisper.

He kept his eyes on hers another second, then bent his mouth almost deliberately to hers.

".... _Sei mia moglie_ ... _sei la mia vera moglie_...." (Thou art my wife ... thou art my real wife....), he kept whispering brokenly after that deep kiss. She clung to him in silence. Yes, she too felt that she belonged to him as she had never belonged to another; yet, to her, this was the supreme tragedy. With her heart at home on his--with all herself at home in him--she knew at last the love in which flesh and spirit are one essence--in which G.o.d the fire and G.o.d the fuel are one. But to know such love only after having pa.s.sed through the nether fires of other loves--was not that the tragedy of tragedies? She would not have been true woman had she not felt it so, and he would not have been true man if, even in that hour, the memory of those other loves had not wrung him. But while it was the woman's way to confess this sense of tragedy, it was the man's way to deny it stoutly. So he told her over and over with pa.s.sionate insistence that she had never known real love--that the great fire of his love would consume even the memory of her mistakes--that the past was nothing to him and should be nothing to her in the light of the present.

They sat there, locked in each other's arms for a long time. The sun was westering. The shadows of the cypresses lengthened along the gra.s.s until they seemed to leap softly from the river brink into the water.

When they went back to the villa, they found old Carletto preparing to serve tea in the columned portico. The Signora Marchesa was just about to descend, he told them. She called from above as he finished speaking:

"_He_, Carletto!... Go tell the Signora Chesney and the Marchesino that tea is ready...."

"We are here," said Amaldi, going towards the staircase. "Wait ... let me help you...."

The Marchesa was coming down very slowly, one step at a time, leaning heavily on a big, ebony cane. The rheumatism in her knee was much better, but she was still very stiff. She called out in her jolly, plucky voice as he began mounting towards her:

"But just look how cleverly I manage by myself!..."

As she said this, she planted her stick on the marble floor of the first landing. Amaldi was within a yard of her--Sophy watching from the hall below. It all happened in a second. The stick slipped ... the Marchesa, who had leaned her whole weight upon it for the next downward step, was thrown head first against the opposite wall. The sound of her bare forehead against the marble of the wall was horrible. Then Amaldi had her in his arms.... Sophy and Carletto ran wildly. It seemed as if she must be dead. They could not realise that such a crashing blow could result in anything but death.

In a few moments the whole villa was in confusion. Amaldi and his man Piero carried the Marchesa to her bedroom. Sophy directed the frightened maids what to do. Amaldi sent Piero to Cortola, the nearest town, for a doctor. All the time that Sophy was working with Amaldi over the unconscious form of his mother, a stupid voice kept dinning in her mind: "_It never rains but it pours.... It never rains but it pours_...."

It was nearly an hour before the Marchesa regained consciousness. Her mind became clear in an astonishingly short time, but she was suffering frightful pain in her head. Fortunately, almost at the moment she opened her eyes Piero came back with the doctor from Cortola. After a careful examination, he a.s.sured them that there was no concussion of the brain, and that if the Signora would remain quietly in bed for a few days, all would be well. It was nearly ten, however, before they became satisfied that her condition was not dangerous.

Sophy insisted that Amaldi should send Carletto back with her to Venice and himself remain with his mother. He would not consent to this. The physician was to spend the night at the villa. The Marchesa was sleeping quietly now under a strong sedative. Her faithful old _cameriera_ of forty years' standing was at the bedside. He was not willing for Sophy to take the journey back without him.

At half-past ten they walked once more through the old garden. The soft night was wonderful with stars. Carletto went ahead carrying a candle.

His knotty fingers, through which the flame shone in gold and reddish streaks, and the silver outline of his hair, glided forward mysteriously against the purple bloom of the night. On the river bank, they saw the glow of a lantern where the gondolieri were getting things in readiness.

Then the brazen beak of the gondola gleamed suddenly.

When they entered it and the gondolieri began to row, it seemed to Sophy that the quiet river, veiled in darkness like the stream of fate, was gliding with them to some appointed end. A feeling of presage welled in her. She shivered and drew closer to Amaldi.

The night was hushed and grave. The banks stole by soft with gra.s.s or the brooding dimness of foliage. The fields were quiet as sleep. Against the violet dark rose sometimes the roofs of thatched cottages and now and then a lighted window shone out--the watchful, steadfast eye of home.

The gates of the first lock opened--the gondola floated in. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, they began to sink with the ebbing water. Little by little, the trees, the houses, the tranquil fields slipped from view. Now they were in a dark well, as in a tomb together. A strip of starry sky shone above. They looked up at it without speaking. The dark lock was like their present--the strip of sky with its secret writing of stars was like the far hope that glimmered for them above the gulf of years....

The gates unclosed again; they glided out once more upon the Brenta, and more than ever it seemed to Sophy like the hidden stream of fate, bearing them to an appointed end.

LII

When they turned into the Rio San Vio, it was nearly one o'clock.

Glancing up at the windows of her flat, Sophy saw that the little drawing-room was lighted. Some one came to one of the windows and looked out between the slats of the blinds as the gondola stopped before the house--Rosa, probably--poor soul, sick with anxiety!

Amaldi stepped ash.o.r.e and held out his hand. They went together into the small court and began to mount the stairs leading to her flat. The stairway was enclosed and very dark. On the first landing was a window through which shone a faint gleam of starlight. He stopped and took her in his arms, but very tenderly. He felt her weariness and apprehension.

His pa.s.sion curbed itself to her need.

"When shall I see you again?" he whispered.

She whispered back:

"I will let you know.... I will write."

Suddenly she started. Amaldi, too, looked up at the dark stairway.

"I heard a door open.... We must go...." she murmured.

"Wait. Let me go first," he said, taking out a box of matches. "These will be better than nothing...."

He mounted slowly before her, lighting the little wax-matches as he went. It seemed to her that the stairway was endless--she was so tired!

She dragged herself up, watching his face and figure spring out in the orange wax-light against the darkness, then fade again as the light died down. Now she could not see him. Then again came the spurt of bluish flame deepening to orange, and again she would see his slight, strong figure and the clear-cut mask of his face.