The fire burned low but sufficed
to light up in part the pious figures on the screen made of stained
glass from a church window. The cup of tea stood where Andrea had laid
it down on the table, cold and untouched. The chair cushion retained the
impress of the form that had leaned against it. All the objects
surrounding her breathed an ineffable melancholy, which condensed itself
in a heavy weight upon Elena's heart, till it sank beneath the well nigh
insupportable burden.
_'Mio Dio! mio Dio!'_
She wished she could make her escape unseen. A puff of wind inflated the
curtains, made the candles flicker, raised a general rustle through the
room. She shivered, and almost without knowing what she did, she
called--
'Andrea!'
Her own voice--that name in the silence startled her strangely, as if
neither voice nor name had come from her lips. Why was Andrea so long in
returning? She listened.----There was no sound but the dull deep
inarticulate murmur of the city. Not a carriage passed across the piazza
of the Trinita de' Monti. As the wind came in strong gusts from time to
time, she closed the window, catching a glimpse as she did so of the
point of the obelisk, black against the starry sky.
Possibly Andrea had not found a conveyance at once on the Piazza
Barberini. She sat herself down to wait on the sofa and tried to calm
her foolish agitation, avoiding all heartsearchings and endeavouring to
fix her attention on external objects.
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