'He, I am sure, is not asleep. When I came upstairs, he went in and took
the Marchese's place opposite to my husband. Are they playing still?
Doubtless he is thinking and his heart aches while he plays. What are
his thoughts?--what are his sufferings?
'I cannot sleep. I shall go out into the loggia. I want to see if they
are still playing, or if he has gone to his room. His windows are at the
corner, in the second story.
'It is a clear, mild night. There are lights still in the card-room. I
stayed a long time in the loggia looking down at the light shining out
against the cypresses and mingling with the silvery whiteness of the
moon. I am trembling from head to foot. I cannot describe the almost
tragic effect of those lighted windows behind which the two men are
playing, opposite to one another, in the deep silence of the night,
scarcely broken by the dull sob of the sea. And they will perhaps play
on till morning, if he will pander so far to my husband's terrible
failing. So we shall all three wake till the dawn and take no rest, each
a prey to his own passion.
'But what is he really thinking of? Of what nature is his pain? What
would I not give, at this moment, to see him, to be able to gaze at him
till the day breaks, even if it were only through the window, in the
night dews, trembling, as I do now, from head to foot.
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