“Oh, yes!” and she let him take her in his arms, while her tears fell with the soft relief of having found a comforter. She was won, this little southern Juliet, won—ah, how easily!—and Hugh vowed to himself that he would justify her innocent trust, and give her all she knew not how to demand.
“You are not frightened now, my child?”
“Oh, no!”
“Let me look and see;” and, as Hugh drew away the veiling fingers, she did not shrink from the kiss that came in their stead.
“What will father say?” murmured she presently.
Now, it would have suited Hugh better could he have left Signor Mattei in ignorance until he had settled the affair with his own people; but he was too generous to involve Violante in the toils of a secret. Never should she be tempted by him to one doubtful action. So he answered—
“That I will soon find out; and to do so, my darling, I must go.”
And so, with many tender words, and with a wonderful delight in his own love as well as in the sweet child who had awakened it, Hugh took his leave for the present; and she, who was conscious of no delight but ill him, watched him for a moment, then came and turned the old lock of the door, which he suddenly found so perplexing; so that, as he went away, he saw her standing in the dim, lofty corridor, with the sunlight shining halo-wise behind her hair, and the still brighter aureole of his passionate fancy glorifying her innocent face.