“Mother of God! save my atheist; and if he will not be saved, save me, and so long as I live enable me to be faithful.”
Quite unconsciously she had revealed her whole nature in this brief supplication. The sum total of her ideas was: “Let me be saved, even if to secure my salvation I must trample underfoot the first law of married life; while I neglect every human duty in order to aspire and rise to ecstasy, let my husband, the man whom the Church has bound to me, love me devotedly and passionately, and never even look at another woman.” In a word: she wanted for herself, as being in possession of the truth, the fullest liberty while he, as the slave of error, was to bear all the burthen.
The room gradually grew darker—sank into funereal gloom pierced only by the cadenced tones of the priest as he repeated the prayers. It was strange, but true; the voice which was exquisitely modulated in conversation sounded rather harsh as he went through the droning round of Paternosters and Ave Marias.
Rafaela brought in a light just as the Padre ended, and the sudden transition from the monotonous sound to the lighter tones of conversation was like coming out of a sepulchral vault into life and day. Paoletti, after a few cheerful words to his saintly daughter, took his leave, promising to return on the morrow. Leon, bent on politeness, conducted him as far as the “Hall of Hymen.”
“God grant,” said the priest with some acrimony, “that her health may allow of my telling her the truth. This farce is ceasing to be an act of charity!”
Leon watched the confessor as he carefully descended the steps and got into a carriage, and as he heard the wheels crunching the gravelled road across the park he turned to go into the house.
“The truth—the truth!” he said to himself. “Yes, let her know it and live! It is my sincerest wish.”
The rest of the party were spending a gay evening in the tapestried drawing-room—so called because it was hung with such works of art, in which the faded hues and ghastly faces seemed to represent a world of consumptive victims. Leon had no desire to join them; he went back to his wife. During the evening nothing occurred worthy of mention, excepting that the doctor, not yet quite satisfied as to the issue, insisted more stringently than ever on complete rest, and put a positive veto on prayers and religious excitement. It was about ten o’clock when María, after a little calm sleep became restless and eager to talk. Leon in obedience to her wishes, had placed the sofa by the side of her bed and was trying to get some repose. But María began asking him a hundred questions about himself and others, mixed up with the old familiar homilies, the old impertinences that had so often annoyed him in former days: He was called an atheist, a hardened materialist, an enemy to God, a man of pride and sin—though all this vituperation was accompanied and sweetened by María’s pretty hand coaxingly stroking the infidel’s beard, patting his cheek or pinching his throat, so sharply indeed, now and then, that her husband exclaimed: “Oh! you are hurting me!”
“You deserve worse than that.—But much will be forgiven you if you only do your sacred duty by me.”
After this there was a long pause when both seemed to be sleeping, but suddenly María awoke with a start saying: