She had said: "Go! I implore you to go! I cannot live like this any longer! For my sake, go!" So it was really in order to please her that he had gone.
The face of his conscience opposite him was looking dirtier than ever. But the treble voices of his desires rang shrill: "He must not forget his duties to himself and to others. He had a duty to his father, who longed to have him near him, settled happily and normally; he had a duty to Valeria, who——" Here he quickly changed argument again. "He had a duty to Nancy, to little, innocent, wonderful Nancy, who understood nothing of the world; she must be saved from designing knaves, from struggling littérateurs and poets who would like to marry her and use her vogue in order to scramble up to a reputation, from the professional beau jeune homme like Aldo, who would break her heart.... It really was his duty——" The train slowed, shivered, and stopped. He was glad to get out, and rush to a hurried supper in the buffet, because the ugly face opposite him was more than he could stand.
All through the night in the slow train to Rome he fought his battles and chastened his soul, and the little ugly face said not a word, but looked at him.
When day dawned he had broken the lilies, and they lay, whiter than before, at his feet. And the face of his conscience was clean. When Rome was reached, where he had three hours to wait for the Naples express, he hurried into the telegraph-office and sent a message to Nunziata:
"Arriving this evening at nine. Forgive. Yours for ever, Nino."
Then, just as he was getting into the hotel omnibus, he learned that a special excursion train was leaving for Naples at once. He could arrive four hours sooner. He hastened back into the station, caught the train, and was already approaching Naples when La Villari received his telegram.
La Villari had just begun her luncheon, and the spaghetti al burro e formaggio lay in a goodly heap of pale gold on her plate. She had just put her fork into them and begun to turn it round and round, when Teresa came in excitedly.
"A telegram, Illustrissima," she said.
La Villari opened the telegram. "Misericordia!" she said. "He is coming back."
Teresa cleaned her hands on her apron. What? The Signorino? He was returning?