Then
she fell to recalling memories of things recent and passed, down to the
smallest details, the most trivial words, the most insignificant facts,
which all had a vast amount of significance for her. But it was towards
the first days of her stay at Schifanoja that her heart returned most
fondly.
'You remember? You remember?'
And suddenly the tears filled her downcast eyes.
One evening Andrea, thinking of her husband, asked her--'Since I knew
you, have you always been _wholly_ mine?'
'Always.'
'I am not speaking of the soul----'
'Hush!----yes, always wholly yours.'
And he, who had never before believed one of his mistresses on this
point, believed Maria without a shadow of doubt as to the truth of her
assertion.
He believed her even while he deceived and profaned her without remorse;
he knew himself to be boundlessly loved by a lofty and noble spirit,
that he was face to face with a grand and all-absorbing passion, and
recognised fully both the grandeur of that passion and his own vileness.
And yet under the lash of his base imaginings he would go so far as to
hurt the mouth of the fond and patient creature, to prevent himself from
crying aloud upon her lips the name that rose invincibly to his; and
that loving and pathetic mouth would murmur, all unconscious, smiling
though it bled--
'Even thus you do not hurt me.
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