“Yes, I have come to Venice too. I must be with my dear lady—when—when Herbert—” She had begun quite calmly, but she did not finish her sentence, for loud sobs drowned the words.
“You were in the next compartment? Why didn’t you come in here with me? It would have made this journey shorter for both of us.”
“I had to be alone,” said the pale woman and then she added: “I only came to you now to ask you where I must go.”
“I think we two had better go to the Hotel Bauer. Let me arrange things for you. Mrs. Thorne must not see you until she has been prepared for your coming. I will arrange that with her husband.”
The two took each other’s hands. They had won respect and sympathy for each other, this quiet man who went so relentlessly and yet so pityingly about his duty in the interest of justice—and the devoted woman whose faithfulness had brought about such a tragedy.
The train had now entered the railway station. Muller and Mrs. Bernauer stood a few minutes later on the banks of the Grand Canal and entered one of the many gondolas waiting there. The moon glanced back from the surface of the water broken into ripples under the oars of the gondoliers; it shone with a magic charm on the old palaces that stood knee-deep in the lagoons, and threw heavy shadows over the narrow water-roads on which the little dark boats glided silently forward. In most of the gondolas coming from the station excited voices and exclamations of delight broke the calm of the moonlit evening as the tourists rejoiced in the beauty that is Venice.
But in the gondola in which Muller and Mrs. Bernauer sat there was deep silence, silence broken only by a sobbing sigh that now and then burst from the heart of the haggard woman. There were few travellers entering Venice on one of its world-famous moonlit nights who were so sad at heart as were these two.
And there were few travellers in Venice as heavy hearted as was the man who next morning took one of the earliest boats out to the Lido.
Muller and Mrs. Bernauer were on the same boat watching him from a hidden corner. The woman’s sad eyes gazed yearningly at the haggard face of the tall man who stood looking over the railing of the little steamer. Her own tears came as she saw the gloom in the once shining grey eyes she loved so well.
Muller stood beside Mrs. Bernauer. His eyes too, keen and quick, followed Herbert Thorne as he stood by the rail or paced restlessly up and down; his face too showed pity and concern. He also saw that Thorne held in his hand a bundle of newspapers which were still enclosed in their mailing wrappers. The papers were pressed in a convulsive grip of the artist’s long slender fingers.