Lianor sighed, but she could not look sad long with those loved children clasped in her arms.
"I cannot understand Manuel," she said, with a puzzled expression in her eyes; "he is so strange, sometimes gay—almost too gay; then he relapses into a gloomy, brooding apathy, from which even the children have no power to rouse him."
"But you have. He is never too morose to have a smile for you. I think, sometimes, he feels lonely. You are bound to him, yet your heart is as unresponsive to his passionate love as if you were strangers," Savitre said, thoughtfully.
"Do you think so, Savitre? I am indeed sorry; but you know how impossible it is to forget my first love. I like Manuel, but beyond that, affection—except for my darlings—is dead; buried in Luiz's grave."
"Hush! here comes Manuel," Savitre whispered, warningly.
It was indeed Manuel, older and graver-looking than of yore, with a deep melancholy in his eyes, brought there only by intense suffering.
Savitre, on his entrance, softly glided from the room, leaving husband and wife alone.
"Lianor," he began, a bright smile lighting up his face as he bent to kiss her fair brow, "I have been thinking, and am resolved to quit India and return to Portugal. I have been here long enough. Don't you think that will be pleasant, dearest?"
"Nothing would please me more," Lianor cried, delightedly. "The greatest wish of my life is to see Portugal once more, to show our country to our children," bending to kiss her tiny daughter's face.
"Then it will be granted. Prepare to start as soon as possible. Now, I am determined to leave here. Something seems to urge me to go at once."