CHAPTER IX.
A PARTING.
The penitential mass had been celebrated, and Paoletti had gone into the room where his saintly daughter lay dying in alternate torments of fever and doubt, when Leon, hurrying from room to room, went in search of Pepa. He found her at last in Ramona’s room. He had something very important to say to her and it might be supposed that Pepa was expecting this, for she was standing breathless, with her eyes fixed on the door, listening for his footstep, and as he entered she went a few paces towards a recess in the room, suggesting to him by the expression of her steps—for steps, too, have a language of their own—that they would talk more at their ease there than anywhere else. Monina ran to meet him and threw her arms round his legs, looking up in his face. He took her up, and the child, finding herself perched so high, began teasing him to admire the artistic beauties of a small clay vase with a handle and spout, a recent gift from the priest of Polvoranca, and then amused herself by holding on to his ear.
“Monina, be quiet—do not be troublesome,” said her mother. “I know—yes I know what you have come to say.—Child be quiet; come to me.”
She took Monina from Leon’s arms and held her in her own. “You need not tell me; I understand—I know—I must go away. I had made up my mind to it, even if I were forced to leave without seeing you.”
“I appreciate your delicacy,” said Leon. “Yes, go to your house in Madrid, and for the present forget my existence.”
“That I can hardly do.—Child, you are choking me,” said Pepa to Monina who was now pulling her mother’s ear. “Get down and run away.—But I will go, without even asking when I am to see you again. I dread to ask and I feel for you in having to give me a reply.”
Leon looked down and said nothing. There was not a kind word, a friendly formality, a common expression of hope even, which, on his lips, would not require a criminal accent. Silence seemed to him more decorous than any protestation of purity of purpose. They both were speechless for some little time, not daring to look at each other, each dreading to read the other’s face and knowing that it would reflect his—or her—own feelings.
“Ask me nothing—tell me nothing—do not utter even a name that can appeal to her,” Leon said at length. “Keep your heart full of generous feeling, and dismiss all hope.”