All the little changes in his speech and manner were clear to her now,
and each had its meaning, and all meant the same. His words, spoken from
time to time, came back to her, and she understood them, and saw how,
for his friend's sake, he had held his peace for himself, and had ever
urged her to marry Gianluca, in spite of everything.
If he had not loved her, or if she had thought that he did not, she
would have had the pride to tear her heart clean from love's terrible
hands, whole or broken, as might be, and to toss it, with the dead dull
weeks into old time's sack of irrevocably lost and useless things, and
so to live her life out, loveless, in the still haven of Gianluca's
friendship. But, having his love, she had not such pride; and the
loyalty she truly had was matched alone against all human nature since
the world began.
Do what she would, she yielded sometimes to that great wish to go
suddenly to her own room and be alone. Then, standing at her window when
the mist whitened in the valley under the broad moon, she listened, and
instantly the air was full of music again as love lifted up its voice,
and sweetly chanted the melody of life. With parted lips she listened,
till the moonlight filled her eyes, and her heart fluttered softly, and
her throat was warm.
And sometimes, too, while she was there, the man who loved her so
silently and so well was by his friend's side, tending as his own the
life that stood between him and the hope of happiness; loving both him
and her, but honour best.
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