The final preparations were made in silence; breakfast was eaten in silence. Franco went to embrace the uncle to whom he had not said good-bye the night before; then he returned to the alcove-room alone, and kneeling beside the little bed, touched with his lips a tiny hand that was hanging over the edge. Upon returning to the parlour he found Luisa in shawl and hat, and asked if she were going to Porlezza also. Yes, she was going. Everything was ready. Luisa had the handbag, the valise was in the boat, and Ismaele was waiting on the stairs of the boathouse, one foot on the step, the other on the prow of the boat.
Veronica accompanied the travellers with a light, and wished her master a pleasant journey, with a crestfallen expression, for she had an inkling of the quarrel.
Two minutes later and the heavy boat, pushed forward by Ismaele's slow and steady "travelling strokes," was passing beneath the wall of the kitchen-garden. Franco put his head out of the little window. The rose-bushes, the caper-bushes, and the aloes hanging from the wall, passed slowly in the pale light of this starry but moonless night; then the orange-trees, the medlar, and the pine slipped by. Good-bye! Good-bye! They passed the cemetery, the Zocca di Mainè, the narrow lane where he had so often walked with Maria, the Tavorell. Franco no longer watched. The light that usually burned in the little cabin was not there to-night, and he could not see his wife, who was silent.
"Are you going to Porlezza about those papers of the notary's, or simply to accompany me?" he said.
"This too!" Luisa murmured sadly. "I tried to be strictly honest with you, and you took offence. You ask my forgiveness, and now you say such things as this to me. I see that one cannot be faithful to truth without great, great suffering. But patience! I have chosen that path now. You will know soon whether I really came on your account or not. Do not humble me by making me say so now."
"Do not humble me!" Franco exclaimed. "I do not understand. We are indeed different in so many ways. My God, how different we are! You are always so completely mistress of yourself, you can always express your thoughts so exactly, they are always so clear, so cool."
Luisa murmured: "Yes, we are different."
Neither spoke again until they reached Cressogno. When they were near the Marchesa's villa Luisa began to talk, and tried to keep the conversation alive until they should have left the villa behind. She asked him to repeat to her the itinerary that had been arranged for his journey, and suggested that he take only his handbag with him, for the valise would be a burden from Argegno on. She had already spoken to Ismaele about it, and he had promised to carry it to Lugano and send it on to Turin from that place. Meanwhile they had passed his grandmother's villa.
Now the sanctuary of Caravina came in sight. Twice during their courtship Franco and Luisa had met under those olive-trees, at the festa of Caravina, on the eighth of September. And now the dear little church in its grove of olives, beneath the awful rocks of the peak of Cressogno, was left behind also. Farewell, little church. Farewell to the past!
"Remember," Franco said, almost harshly, "that Maria is to say her prayers every morning and evening. It is an order I give you."