Whosoever Shall Offend Part 47

Kalmon sighed, for he was very sorry for Regina.

"On the other hand," the Contessa said at last, "it may be a real charity. Have you any idea why she wishes to see Aurora?"

"No. I cannot guess."

"I can. At least, I think I can." She paused again. "You know everything about me," she continued presently. "In the course of years I have told you all my story. Do you think I am a better woman than Regina?"

"My dear friend!" cried Kalmon, almost angrily. "How can you suggest--"

She turned her clear, sad eyes to him, and her look cut short his speech.

"What has her sin been?" she asked gently. "She has loved Marcello. What was mine? That I loved one man too well. Which is the better woman? She, the peasant, who knew no better, who found her first love dying, and saved him, and loved him--knowing no better, and braving the world? Or I, well born, carefully brought up, a woman of the world, and married--no matter how--not braving the world at all, but miserably trying to deceive it, and my husband, and my child? Do you think I was so much better than poor Regina? Would my own daughter think so if she could know and understand?"

"If you were not a very good woman now," Kalmon said earnestly, "you could not say what you are saying."

"Never mind what I am now. I am not as good as you choose to think. If I were, there would not be a bitter thought left. I should have forgiven all. Leave out of the question what I am now. Compare me as I was with Regina as she is. That is how I put it, and I am right."

"Even if you were," Kalmon answered doubtfully, "the situation would be the same, so far as Aurora is concerned."

"But suppose that this poor woman cannot die in peace unless she has asked Aurora's pardon and obtained her forgiveness, what then?"

"Her forgiveness? For what?"

"For coming between her and Marcello. Say that, so far as Regina knows, my daughter is the only human being she has ever injured, what then?"

"Does Aurora love Marcello?" asked Kalmon, instead of answering the question.

"I think she does. I am almost sure of it."

Kalmon was silent for a while.

"But Marcello," he said at last, "what of him?"

"He has always loved Aurora," the Contessa answered. "Do you blame him so much for what he has done? Why do you blame some people so easily, my dear friend, and others not at all? Do you realise what happened to him?

He was virtually taken out of the life he was leading, by a blow that practically destroyed his memory, and of which the consequences altogether destroyed his will for some time. He found himself saved and at the same time loved--no, wors.h.i.+pped--by one of the most beautiful women in the world. Never mind her birth! She has never looked at any other man, before or since, and from what I have heard, she never will.

Ah, if all women were like her! Marcello, weak from illness, allowed himself to be wors.h.i.+pped, and Corbario did the rest. I understand it all. Do you blame him very much? I don't. With all your strength of character, you would have done the same at his age! And having taken what she offered, what could he do, when he grew up and came to himself, and felt his will again? Could he cast her off, after all she had done for him?"

"He could marry her," observed Kalmon. "I don't see why he should not, after all."

"Marriage!" There was a little scornful sadness in Maddalena's voice.

"Marriage is always the solution! No, no, he is right not to marry her, if he has ever thought of it. They would only make each other miserable for the rest of their lives. Miserable, and perhaps faithless too. That is what happens when men and women are not saints. Look at me!"

"You were never in that position. Others were to blame, who made you marry when you were too young to have any will of your own."

"Blame no one," said the Contessa gravely. "I shall give Aurora Regina's message, and if she is willing to go and see her, I shall bring her to-morrow morning--to-night, if there is no time to be lost. The world need never know. Go and tell Regina what I have said. It may comfort her a little, poor thing."

"Indeed it will!"

Kalmon's brown eyes beamed with pleasure at the thought of taking the kindly message to the dying girl. He rose to his feet at once.

"There is no one like you," he said, as he took her hand.

"It is nothing. It is what Marcello's mother would have done, and she was my best friend. All I do is to take the responsibility upon myself, however Aurora may choose to act. I will send you word, in either case.

If Aurora will not go, I will come myself, if I can be of any use, if it would make Regina feel happier. I will come, and I will tell her what I have told you. Good-night, dear friend."

Kalmon was not an emotional man, but as he went out he felt a little lump in his throat, as if he could not swallow.

He had not doubted his friend's kindness, but he had doubted whether she would feel that she had a right to "expose her daughter," as the world would say, to meeting such a "person," as the world called Regina--"Consalvi's Regina."

CHAPTER XXII

All that night and the following day Regina recognised no one; and it was night again, and her strength began to fail, but her understanding returned. Marcello saw the change, and made a sign to the nurse, who went out to tell Kalmon.

It was about nine o'clock when he entered the room, and Regina knew him and looked at him anxiously. He, in turn, glanced at Marcello, and she understood. She begged Marcello to go and get some rest. Her voice was very weak, as if she were suffocating, and she coughed painfully. He did not like to go away, but Kalmon promised to call him at midnight; he had been in the room six hours, scarcely moving from his seat. He lingered at the door, looked back, and at last went out.

"Will she come?" asked Regina, when he was gone.

"In half an hour. I have sent a messenger, for they have no telephone."

A bright smile lighted up the wasted face.

"Heaven will reward you," she said, as the poor say in Rome when they receive a charity.

Then she seemed to be resting, for her hands lay still, and she closed her eyes. But presently she opened them, looking up gratefully into the big man's kind face.

"Shall I be alone with her a little?" she asked.

"Yes, my dear. You shall be alone with her."

Again she smiled, and he left the nurse with her and went and waited downstairs at the street door, till the Contessa and Aurora should come, in order to take them up to the little apartment. He knew that Marcello must have fallen asleep at once, for he had not rested at all for twenty-four hours, and very little during several days past. Kalmon was beginning to fear that he would break down, though he was so much stronger than formerly.

Marcello had always been grateful to Regina, even when he had convinced himself that he loved her. Love is not very compatible with grat.i.tude.

Two people who love each other very much expect everything because they are always ready to give everything, not in return or by way of any exchange, but as if the two were one in giving and taking. A man cannot be grateful to himself. But Marcello had never felt that dear illusion with Regina, because there had been no real companions.h.i.+p; and so he had always been grateful to her, and now that she was perhaps dying, he was possessed by the horribly painful certainty that he could never repay her what he owed, and that this debt of honour must remain unpaid for ever, if she died. There was much more than that in what he felt, of course, for there was his very real affection, tormented by the foreboding of the coming wrench, and there was the profound sympathy of a very kind man for a suffering woman. But all that together was not love like hers for him; it was not love at all.

Kalmon waited, and smoked a little, reflecting on these things, which he understood tolerably well. The quiet man of science had watched Marcello thoughtfully, and could not help asking himself what look there would be in his own eyes, if Maddalena dell' Armi were dying and he were standing by her bedside. It would not be Marcello's look.

A closed cab stopped before the entrance, and almost before he could throw away his cigarette, the Contessa and Aurora were standing beside him on the pavement.

"She is very weak," he said, "but she will not be delirious again for some time--if at all."

Neither of the ladies spoke, and they followed him in silence up the ill-lighted staircase.

"That is where I live," he said, as he pa.s.sed his own door on the second landing. "Marcello is camping there. He is probably asleep now."

"Asleep!" It was Aurora that uttered the single word, in a puzzled tone.