All at once, she struggled free of his embrace, her whole form convulsed
with horror, her face ghastly and distraught as if she had at that
moment torn herself from the arms of Death.
That name! That name!--She had heard that name!
A deep and awful silence fell upon her soul, and in it there suddenly
opened one of those great gulfs into which the whole universe seems to
be hurled at the touch of one thought. She heard nothing more. Andrea
might writhe and supplicate and despair as he would--in vain.
She heard nothing. Some instinct directed her actions. She found her
things and put them on.
Andrea lay upon the floor, sobbing, frenzied, mad.
He was conscious that she was preparing to leave the room.
'Maria! Maria!
He listened.
'Maria!'
He only heard the sound of the door closing behind her--she was gone.
CHAPTER X
At ten o'clock in the morning of June 20th the sale began of the
furniture and hangings belonging to His Excellency the Minister
Plenipotentiary for Guatemala.
It was a burning hot morning. Summer blazed already over Rome. Up and
down the Via Nationale ran the tram-cars, drawn by horses with funny
white caps over their heads to protect them against the sun. Long lines
of heavily-laden carts encumbered the road, while the blare of trumpets
mingled with the cracking of whips and the hoarse cries of the carters.
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