“All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. When shall we go?”
“We shall go to-night; but terrible as it is to part from you,—you—”
“Ah!” interrupted the wife, and covered her face with her hands.
Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in his maxims, melted into absolute uxorial imbecility at the sight of that mute distress. He put his arm round his wife’s waist, with genuine affection, and without a single proverb at his heart. “Carissima, do not grieve so; we shall be back soon, and travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather no moss, and there is so much to see to at home.”
Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband’s arm. She withdrew her hands from her face and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes.
“Alphonso,” she said touchingly, “hear me! What you think good, that shall ever be good to me. But do not think that I grieve solely because of our parting. No; I grieve to think that, despite all these years in which I have been the partner of your hearth, and slept on your breast,—all these years in which I have had no thought but, however humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you had read my heart, and seen there but yourself and your child,—I grieve to think that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood by my side at the altar.”
“Trust!” repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience-stricken; “why do you say ‘trust’? In what have I distrusted you? I am sure,” he continued, with the artful volubility of guilt, “that I never doubted your fidelity, hook-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be; never pryed into your letters; never inquired into your solitary walks; never heeded your flirtations with that good-looking Parson Dale; never kept the money; and never looked into the account-books!” Mrs. Riccabocca refused even a smile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she seemed scarcely to hear them.
“Can you think,” she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still its struggles for relief in sobs,—“can you think that I could have watched and thought and taxed my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture what might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that you have secrets known to your daughter, your servant, not to me? Fear not,—the secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them to your innocent child. Besides, do I not know your nature; and do I not love you because I know it?—it is for something connected with those secrets that you leave your home. You think that I should be incautious, imprudent. You will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to prepare for your departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you, husband.” Mrs. Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian’s arm. “O Father, can you resist this? Trust her! trust her!—I am a woman like her! I answer for her woman’s faith. Be yourself,—ever nobler than all others, my own father.”
“Diavolo! Never one door shuts but another opens,” groaned Riccabocca. “Are you a fool, child? Don’t you see that it was for your sake only I feared, and would be cautious?”
“For mine! Oh, then do not make me deem myself mean, and the cause of meanness. For mine! Am I not your daughter,—the descendant of men who never feared?” Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended she led her father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now gained.