'"Do you want to kill yourself?" he said almost fiercely. We heard the
sound of the approaching carriage and turned to meet it. He was going to
speak to me again.
'"Hush, for pity's sake," I entreated, for I felt I was at the end of my
forces.
'He was silent. Then, with an assurance that stupefied me, he said to
Francesca--"Such a pity you did not come! It was perfectly enchanting."
'And he went on talking as quietly and unconcernedly as if nothing had
happened, even with a certain amount of gaiety. I was only too thankful
for his dissimulation which screened me, for if I had been obliged to
speak, I should inevitably have betrayed myself, and for both of us to
have been silent would doubtless have aroused Francesca's suspicions.
'A little further on, the road wound up the hill towards Schifanoja. Oh,
the boundless melancholy of the evening! A new moon shone in the
faintly-tinted, pale-green sky, where my eyes, and perhaps mine alone,
detected a lingering rosy tinge--that same rosy light that gleamed upon
the pools down in the pine wood.
'_October 5th._--He knows now that I love him, and knows it from my own
lips. Nothing is left for me but flight--this is what I have come to!
'When he looks at me now, there is a strange gleam in the depths of his
eyes that was not there before. To-day, while Francesca was absent for a
moment, he took my hand and made as if he would kiss it.
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