"What shall I do, Leone? I would give my life to undo what I have done; but it is useless—I cannot. Do you mean that we must part?"
The eyes she raised to his face were haggard and weary with pain.
"There is nothing for it but parting, Lance," she said. "I thought we could be friends, but it is not possible; we have loved each other too well."
"We need not part now," he said; "let us think it over; life is very long; it will be hard to live without the sunlight of your presence, Leone, now that I have lived in it so long. Let us think it over. Do you know what I wanted to ask you last evening?"
"No," she replied, "what was it?"
"A good that you may still grant me," he said. "We may part, if you wish it, Leone. Leone, let us have one happy day before the time comes. Leone, you see how fair the summer is, I want you to spend one day with me on the river. The chestnuts are all in flower—the whole world is full of beauty, and song, and fragrance; the great boughs are dipping into the stream, and the water-lilies lie on the river's breast. My dear love and lost love, come with me for one day. We may be parted all the rest of our lives, come with me for one day."
Her face brightened with the thought. Surely for one day they might be happy; long years would have to pass, and they would never meet. Oh, for one day, away on the river, in the world of clear waters, green boughs and violet banks—one day away from the world which had trammeled them and fettered them.
"You tempt me," she said, slowly. "A day with you on the river. Ah, for such a pleasure as that I would give twenty years of my life."
He did not answer her, because he dared not. He waited until his heart was calm and at rest again, then he said:
"Let us go to-morrow, Leone, no one knows what twenty-four hours may bring forth. Let us go to-morrow, Leone. Rise early. How often we have gone out together while the dew lay upon the flowers and grass. Shall it be so?"