William Dean Howells: 27 Novels in One Volume (Illustrated). William Dean Howells

it. But you had no right to love my soul and not me—you, a woman. A woman must not love only the soul of a man."

      "Yes, yes!" piteously explained the girl, "but you were a priest to me!"

      "That is true, madamigella. I was always a priest to you; and now I see that I never could be otherwise. Ah, the wrong began many years before we met. I was trying to blame you a little"—

      "Blame me, blame me; do!"

      —"but there is no blame. Think that it was another way of asking your forgiveness.... O my God, my God, my God!"

      He released his hands from her, and uttered this cry under his breath, with his face lifted towards the heavens. When he looked at her again, he said: "Madamigella, if my share of this misery gives me the right to ask of you"—

      "Oh ask anything of me! I will give everything, do everything!"

      He faltered, and then, "You do not love me," he said abruptly; "is there some one else that you love?"

      She did not answer.

      "Is it ... he?"

      She hid her face.

      "I knew it," groaned the priest, "I knew that too!" and he turned away.

      "Don Ippolito, Don Ippolito—oh, poor, poor Don Ippolito!" cried the girl, springing towards him. "Is this the way you leave me? Where are you going? What will you do now?"

      "Did I not say? I am going to die a priest."

      "Is there nothing that you will let me be to you, hope for you?"

      "Nothing," said Don Ippolito, after a moment. "What could you?" He seized the hands imploringly extended towards him, and clasped them together and kissed them both. "Adieu!" he whispered; then he opened them, and passionately kissed either palm; "adieu, adieu!"

      A great wave of sorrow and compassion and despair for him swept through her. She flung her arms about his neck, and pulled his head down upon her heart, and held it tight there, weeping and moaning over him as over some hapless, harmless thing that she had unpurposely bruised or killed. Then she suddenly put her hands against his breast, and thrust him away, and turned and ran.

      Ferris stepped back again into the shadow of the tree from which he had just emerged, and clung to its trunk lest he should fall. Another seemed to creep out of the court in his person, and totter across the white glare of the campo and down the blackness of the calle. In the intersected spaces where the moonlight fell, this alien, miserable man saw the figure of a priest gliding on before him.

XVI

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      Florida swiftly mounted the terrace steps, but she stopped with her hand on the door, panting, and turned and walked slowly away to the end of the terrace, drying her eyes with dashes of her handkerchief, and ordering her hair, some coils of which had been loosened by her flight. Then she went back to the door, waited, and softly opened it. Her mother was not in the parlor where she had left her, and she passed noiselessly into her own room, where some trunks stood open and half-packed against the wall. She began to gather up the pieces of dress that lay upon the bed and chairs, and to fold them with mechanical carefulness and put them in the boxes. Her mother's voice called from the other chamber, "Is that you, Florida?"

      "Yes, mother," answered the girl, but remained kneeling before one of the boxes, with that pale green robe in her hand which she had worn on the morning when Ferris had first brought Don Ippolito to see them. She smoothed its folds and looked down at it without making any motion to pack it away, and so she lingered while her mother advanced with one question after another; "What are you doing, Florida? Where are you? Why didn't you come to me?" and finally stood in the doorway. "Oh, you're packing. Do you know, Florida, I'm getting very impatient about going. I wish we could be off at once."

      A tremor passed over the young girl and she started from her languid posture, and laid the dress in the trunk. "So do I, mother. I would give the world if we could go to-morrow!"

      "Yes, but we can't, you see. I'm afraid we've undertaken a great deal, my dear. It's quite a weight upon my mind, already; and I don't know what it will be. If we were free, now, I should say, go to-morrow, by all means. But we couldn't arrange it with Don Ippolito on our hands."

      Florida waited a moment before she replied. Then she said coldly, "Don Ippolito is not going with us, mother."

      "Not going with us? Why"—

      "He is not going to America. He will not leave Venice; he is to remain a priest," said Florida, doggedly.

      Mrs. Vervain sat down in the chair that stood beside the door. "Not going to America; not leave Venice; remain a priest? Florida, you astonish me! But I am not the least surprised, not the least in the world. I thought Don Ippolito would give out, all along. He is not what I should call fickle, exactly, but he is weak, or timid, rather. He is a good man, but he lacks courage, resolution. I always doubted if he would succeed in America; he is too much of a dreamer. But this, really, goes a little beyond anything. I never expected this. What did he say, Florida? How did he excuse himself?"

      "I hardly know; very little. What was there to say?"

      "To be sure, to be sure. Did you try to reason with him, Florida?"

      "No," answered the girl, drearily.

      "I am glad of that. I think you had said quite enough already. You owed it to yourself not to do so, and he might have misinterpreted it. These foreigners are very different from Americans. No doubt we should have had a time of it, if he had gone with us. It must be for the best. I'm sure it was ordered so. But all that doesn't relieve Don Ippolito from the charge of black ingratitude, and want of consideration for us. He's quite made fools of us."

      "He was not to blame. It was a very great step for him. And if"....

      "I know that. But he ought not to have talked of it. He ought to have known his own mind fully before speaking; that's the only safe way. Well, then, there is nothing to prevent our going to-morrow."

      Florida drew a long breath, and rose to go on with the work of packing.

      "Have you been crying, Florida? Well, of course, you can't help feeling sorry for such a man. There's a great deal of good in Don Ippolito, a great deal. But when you come to my age you won't cry so easily, my dear. It's very trying," said Mrs. Vervain. She sat awhile in silence before she asked: "Will he come here to-morrow morning?"

      Her daughter looked at her with a glance of terrified inquiry.

      "Do have your wits about you, my dear! We can't go away without saying good-by to him, and we can't go away without paying him."

      "Paying him?"

      "Yes, paying him—paying him for your lessons. It's always been very awkward. He hasn't been like other teachers, you know: more like a guest, or friend of the family. He never seemed to want to take the money, and of late, I've been letting it run along, because I hated so to offer it, till now, it's quite a sum. I suppose he needs it, poor fellow. And how to get it to him is the question. He may not come to-morrow, as usual, and I couldn't trust it to the padrone. We might send it to him in a draft from Paris, but I'd rather pay him before we go. Besides, it would be rather rude, going away without seeing him again." Mrs. Vervain thought a moment; then, "I'll tell you," she resumed. "If he doesn't happen to come here to-morrow morning, we can stop on our way to the station and give him the money."

      Florida did not answer.

      "Don't you think that would be a good plan?"

      "I don't know," replied the girl in a dull way.

      "Why, Florida, if you think from anything Don Ippolito said that he would rather not see us again—that it would be painful to him—why, we could ask Mr. Ferris to hand him the money."

      "Oh no, no,