The Italians Part 52

"n.o.bili," Enrica says, "tell me--oh! tell me, are you hurt?"

Enrica has risen from the chair. One hand rests on the table for support. Her voice falters as she asks the question. n.o.bili, every drop of whose blood runs fevered in his veins, turns toward her.

"I am not hurt--a scratch or two--nothing."

"Thank G.o.d!" Enrica utters, in a low voice.

n.o.bili endeavors to approach her. She draws back.

"As I am here"--he speaks with the utmost embarra.s.sment--"here, as you see, by accident"--his voice rests on the words--"I cannot go--"

As n.o.bili speaks he perceives that Enrica gradually retreats farther from him. The tender delight that had come into her eyes when he first addressed her fades out into a scared look--a look like a defenseless animal expecting to receive a death-wound. n.o.bili sees and understands the expression.

His heart smites him sorely. Great G.o.d!--has he become an object of terror to her?

"Enrica!"--she starts back as n.o.bili p.r.o.nounces her name, yet he speaks so softly the sound comes to her almost like a sigh--"Enrica, do not fear me. I will say no word to offend you. I cannot go without asking your pardon. As one who loved you once--as one who loves--"

He stops. What is he saying?--"I humbly beseech you to forgive me.

Enrica, let me hear you say that you forgive me."

Still Enrica retreats from him, that suffering, saint-like look upon her face he knows so well. n.o.bili follows her. He kneels at her feet.

He kneels at the feet of the woman from whom, not an hour before, he had demanded a separation!

"Say--can you forgive me before I go?"

As n.o.bili speaks, his strong heart goes out to her in speechless longings. If Enrica had looked into his eyes they would have told her that he never had loved her as now! And they were parted!

Enrica puts out her hand timidly. Her lips move as if to speak, but no sound comes. n.o.bili rises; he takes her hand within both his own. He kisses it reverently.

"Dear hand--" he murmurs, "and it was mine!"

Released from his, the dainty little hand falls to her side. She sighs deeply. There is the old charm in n.o.bili's voice--so sweet, so subtile. The tones fall upon her ear like strains of pa.s.sionate music.

A storm of emotion sweeps across her face. She has forgotten all in the rapture of his presence. Yes!--that voice! Had it not been raised but a few hours before at the altar to repudiate her? How can she believe in him? How surrender herself to the glamour of his words?

Remembering all this, despair comes over her. Again Enrica shrinks from him. She bursts into tears and hides her face with her hands.

Enrica's distrust of him, her silence, her tears, cut n.o.bili to the soul. He knows he deserves it. Ah!--with her there before him, how he curses himself for ever having doubted her! Every justification suddenly leaves him. He is utterly confounded. The gossip of the club--Count Marescotti and his miserable verses--the marchesa herself--what are they all beside the purity of those saint-like eyes?

Nera, too--false, fickle, sensual Nera--a mere thing of flesh and blood--he had left her for Nera! Was he mad?

At that moment, of all living men, Count n.o.bili seemed to himself the most unworthy! He must go--he did not deserve to stay!

"Enrica--before I leave you, speak to me one word of forgiveness--I implore you!"

As he speaks their eyes meet. Yes, she is his own Enrica--unchanged, unsullied!--the idol is intact within its shrine--the sanctuary is as he had left it! No rude touch had soiled that atmosphere of purity and freshness that floated like an aureole around her!

How could he leave her?--if they must part, he would hear his fate from her own lips. Enrica is leaning against the wall speechless, her face shaded by her hand. Big tears are trickling through her fingers.

Unable to support herself she clings to a chair, then seats herself.

And n.o.bili, pale with pa.s.sion stands by, and dares not so much as to touch her--dares not touch her, although she is his wife!

In the fury of his self-reproach, he digs his hands into the ma.s.ses of thick chestnut curls that lie disordered about his head.

Fool, idiot!--had he lost her? A terrible misgiving overcomes him? It fills him with horror. Was it too late? Would she never forgive him?

n.o.bili's troubled eyes, that wander all over her, ask the question.

"Speak to me--speak to me!" he cries. "Curse me--but speak to me!"

At this appeal Enrica turns her tear-bedewed face toward him.

"n.o.bili," she says at last, very low, "would you have gone without seeing me?"

n.o.bili dares not lie to her. He makes no reply.

"Oh, do not deceive me, n.o.bili!" and Enrica wrings her hands and looks piteously into his face. "Tell me--would you have come to me?"

It is only by a strong effort that n.o.bili can restrain himself from folding Enrica in his arms and in one burning kiss burying the remembrance of the miserable past. But he trembles lest by offending her the tender flower before him may never again expand to the ardor of his love. If Fra Pacifico has not by his arguments already shaken n.o.bili's conviction of the righteousness of his own conduct, the sight of Enrica utterly overcomes him.

"Deceive you!" he exclaims, approaching her and seizing her hands which she did not withdraw--"deceive you! How little you read my heart!"

He holds her soft hands firmly in his--he covers them with kisses.

Enrica feels the tender pressure of his lips pa.s.s through her whole frame. But, can she trust him?

"Did I not love you enough?" she asks, looking into his face. She gently disengages her hands from his grasp. There is no reproach in her look, but infinite sorrow. "Can I believe you?" And the soft blue eyes rest upon him full of pathetic pleading.

An expression of despair comes into n.o.bili's bright face. How can he answer her? How can he satisfy her when he himself has shaken her trust? Alas! would the golden past never come again? The past, tinted with the pa.s.sion of ardent summer?

"Believe me?" he cries, in a tone of wildest pa.s.sion. "Can you ask me?"

As he speaks he leans over her. Love is in his voice--his eyes--his whole att.i.tude. Would she not understand him? Would she reject him?

Enrica draws back--she raises her hand in protest.

"Let me again"--n.o.bili is following her closely--"let me implore your forgiveness of my unmanly conduct."

She presses her hands to her bosom as if in pain, but not a sound comes to her lips.

"Believe me," he urges, "I have been driven mad by the marchesa! It is my only excuse."

"Am I?" Enrica answers. "Have I not suffered enough from my aunt?

What had she to do between you and me? Did I love you less because she hated you? Listen, n.o.bili"--Enrica with difficulty commands her voice--"from the first time we met in the cathedral I gave myself to you--you--you only."

"But, Enrica--love--you consented to leave me. You sent Fra Pacifico to say so."

The thought that Enrica had so easily resigned him still rankled in n.o.bili's heart. Spite of himself, there is bitterness in his tone.

Enrica is standing aloof from him. The light of the lamp strikes upon her golden hair, her downcast eyes, her cheeks mantling with blushes.

"I leave you!"--a soft dew came into Enrica's eyes as she fixed them upon n.o.bili--a dew that rapidly formed itself into two tears that rolled silently down her cheek--"never--never!"

Spite of the horrors of the past, these words, that look, tell him she is his! n.o.bili's heart leaps within him. For a moment he is breathless--speechless in the tumult of his great joy.