"Cecil...." she said, "I've come ... one, last time...." She broke off; then went on: "This one, last time," she repeated, "to see if you ... if we ... if together...." Again words failed her. Looking firmly at him, she ended more quietly: "I've come to beg you to tell me the truth," she said, and her dark eyes rested on him full of doubt and pain.

He could scarcely have grown paler, but his head drooped; he sat looking down at his great hands which he clasped and unclasped nervously.

"Well...." she whispered finally. "Will you?.... It's our last ... last chance."

With difficulty he articulated, "Try me."

"Then ..." she went on, after a slight pause, still whispering, "are you ... taking morphine again?"

There was no pause before his answer.

"Yes," he said, his face still drooped away from her.

She caught one hand to her breast. She could not believe her own ears.

Had he said "Yes" at once--simply--outright like that, to such a question? Something fine and brave in her throbbed response to that unequivocal "Yes."

"Cecil...." she said.

All at once he tossed up his hands to his bent face. His great figure, huddled on the little chair, began shaking from head to foot.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" he said. "My G.o.d! Don't be kind to me ... don't be kind!"

And dreadful sobs began heaving through him.

"Oh ... _poor Cecil_...!" came from her in a gasp.

And then he fell forward on his knees before her, his face in her lap, his hands grasping the soft folds of her gown. His tumultuous, painful sobbing shook them both--as if torn up by b.l.o.o.d.y roots came the great sobs.

"Sophy.... G.o.d.... Sophy.... I've suffered.... I've suffered.... If he'd died.... Yes ... one shot ... yes ... one...."

And his pa.s.sion of grief, torrential as his pa.s.sion of love, flooded her, shook her with its cyclonic abandonment, until she seemed one flesh with him in this unmeasured tragedy of wild remorse.

Through her thin gown she felt his tears soak to her very skin--a hot chrism baptising her once more his in this terrific rite of sorrow.

She bent over him, her hands upon his head, her own tears falling.

"No ... no!" she pleaded. "No ... no, Cecil! Don't ... don't despair like this ... we will begin again.... The truth.... You have told the truth...."

She began to sob herself now.

"And the truth shall make you free ... the truth shall make you free, dear...." she kept sobbing.

Now she had his head against her breast--her cheek pressed down on it.

As she held Bobby to comfort him, when he was frightened, so she held the great man. He was afraid now--afraid of himself--like a child. Close she held him to comfort him ... close ... close....

XLI

That night they talked things over quietly. Sophy was very gentle with him--almost incredibly generous, he thought. With his permission, she consulted Camenis about the amount of morphia that he ought to have, to "tail off," as he said humbly--in order to get him back to England without too much discomfort from the sciatic pains and the sudden snapping of the habit that he had formed again--albeit to such a moderate extent. Camenis gave his opinion, and Sophy undertook to give her husband the properly diminished doses. Chesney was almost pathetically humble. It hurt her in some subtle nerve to see the big, domineering man, so subdued, so timidly anxious to conciliate her, to redeem himself in her opinion. It was beyond doubt that he had suffered excruciatingly over the boy's illness and his part in it.

"The little chap won't be able to bear the sight of me, I suppose," he had ventured once, and she saw his lips quiver as he said it.

She felt a submerging pity for him.

"Leave that to me," she answered gently. "I've thought of a way.... I think I can manage ... but it will take time, of course."

Another thing that proved to her the depth of his self-humiliation and genuine regret was the fact that he wished to apologise to Amaldi.

"I shall tell him the brute fact," he said, "that I was drunk with that _Grappa_ stuff. He can accept my apology or not, as he chooses."

He wrote the note of apology the morning after their talk.

"Shall I post it or send it by Luigi?" he asked, looking not at her but the letter which he was holding. Sophy thought a moment, then she said:

"We are leaving Wednesday, and I ought to see the Marchesa before I go.

Suppose you let me take it! I can leave it with her."

"Do," he said, giving her the letter; then he took her hand in both his.

"Thanks, Sophy," he added, under his breath.

Sophy started for Le Vigne about ten o'clock. She took Luigi with her to run the launch--he was fortunately cleverer as a _meccanico_ than as a valet. The sky was coloured like blue morning-glories, and the lake like gentian. Clouds and foam dissolved on the great sheets of blue like snow melting upon flame. But the beauty of the day seemed cruel to Sophy. It was like the laughter of water in sunlight above the place where a ship has foundered. Camenis had happened to mention the fact that Amaldi was in Milan, else she could not have gone for that farewell visit, onerous as she felt it to be.

And even as it was, she shrank from seeing the Marchesa. Had Amaldi told her? Her cheek tingled shame at the thought. But the next instant she felt that she knew him better than that. No; he would not have told any one of that scene which had been so degrading for her.

But when she reached Le Vigne, she found that the Marchesa had gone to Belgirate for the day. Old Carletto seemed deeply sorry for her disappointment.

"_Che peccato, signora! Che peccato!_" he kept saying, shaking his white head slowly and clicking his tongue. The Signora Marchesa would be so sad, so very sad to miss the signora. Then he brightened up.

"But the Marchesino is here, signora!" he exclaimed. "The Marchesino is very busy in his study ... but he would wish me to disturb him on such an occasion. He will know how to find the Signora Marchesa."

Sophy had started for the da.r.s.ena again in real panic. She even forgot to leave Cecil's letter with the old butler.

"No--no! Don't disturb the Marchese," she called back. "I desire you not to do it."

As she was speaking, Carletto, who was following her as fast as his bent legs would amble, called out:

"_Ma, eccolo! Ecco il Marchesino, signora!_"

She hurried on, her head bent, the letter in the pocket of her gown seeming to scorch her fingers. Amaldi overtook her, just before she reached the da.r.s.ena. They murmured vague greetings. Both were very pale.

A trembling had seized Sophy. Everything grew dim before her in that moment. Amaldi, seeing how it was with her, offered her his arm. She took it from the sheer instinct of self-preservation. The ground seemed falling from beneath her feet in slanting jerks.

"You are tired...." he said, speaking with an effort. "There is a seat here ... among these ilex shrubs.... You must rest a moment."

Walking giddily along the unstable, sliding earth, she allowed him to guide her to the old stone seat on the south terrace. The dark foliage screened them from the house. Between them and the blue dazzle of the lake was a low bal.u.s.trade of stone. Amaldi helped her to the seat, and then went and leaned upon this bal.u.s.trade.