'Don't you think so?' Musellaro repeated. 'And, besides, to make a
Menelaus of that Heathfield would in itself be an unspeakable
satisfaction.'
'So I think,' answered Andrea, forcing himself to adopt his friend's
light tone. 'Well, we shall see.'
BOOK IV
CHAPTER I
'Maria, grant me this one moment of unalloyed sweetness! Let me tell you
all that is in my heart.'
She rose. 'Forgive, me,' she said gently, without anger or bitterness
and with an audible quiver of emotion in her voice. 'Forgive me but I
cannot listen to you. You pain me very much.'
'Well, I will not say anything--only stay--I implore you.'
She seated herself once more. It was like the days of Schifanoja come
back again. The same matchless grace of the delicate head drooping under
the masses of hair as under some divine chastisement, the same deep and
tender shadow, a fusion of diaphanous violet and soft blue, surrounding
the tawny brown eyes.
'I only wanted,' Andrea went on humbly, 'I only wanted to remind you of
the words I spoke, the words you listened to that morning in the park
under the shadow of the trees, in an hour that will always remain sacred
in my memory.'
'I have not forgotten them.'
'Since that day my unhappiness has become ever deeper, darker, more
poignant. I can never tell you all I have suffered, all the abject
misery of that time: can never tell you how often in spirit I have
called upon you as if my last hour had come, nor describe to you the
thrill of joy, the upward bound of my whole soul towards the light of
hope, if, for one moment, I dared to think that the remembrance of me
still lived in your heart.
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