His
happiness was strangely founded, but it was genuine, though not
altogether noble. Her words were a reprieve; and he could keep his
secret longer, almost, perhaps, until he died, and when he should be
dying, it would be easier to tell. But that was far from being all. He
loved her, as the source of great charity and kindness from which the
people were drawing life, with all his own passionate charity; and he
loved her for herself, for her gentleness and her hardness, because she
ruled him, and because she touched his heart. All other thoughts away,
he could not bear to think of her as bound for life to be the actual
wife of a helpless cripple.
And something of her own heart he half guessed and half knew. For in her
innocence she had confessed to him how she had thought of Taquisara,
when she had been alone that day, and how the blood had flowed in her
face, and burned her so that she was almost sure that such thoughts
must be wrong. It was because she had told him these things that he had
watched Taquisara ever since, and he had seen that the man loved her
silently.
But he knew also, as well as any one could know it, that Gianluca would
never stand upon his feet again. And, moreover, he knew that though it
would seem wrong to Veronica to love Taquisara, and would be wrong, if
she had intention, as it were, yet there could be no real sin in it, for
she was not Gianluca's wife. Had she been truly married, Don Teodoro,
gentle and old, would have found strength to force Taquisara to go
away--had anything more than the force of honour been needed in such a
case.
Pages:
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494