Oh, memory! help me, help me to keep sane just a few more hours—until the end comes. It is a last luxury! I will think of those golden days we spent together ere the blow fell. Ah! how happy we were! Every breath of life was sweet; every moment seemed charged with the delicious happiness! The past, with its haunting shadows, and the memory of that grim, deathly figure huddled up amongst the ferns in the bare pine wood had perished. Background and foreground had vanished in the bewildering joys of the present. Oh! Paul, that was happiness, indeed. All measures of outside things seemed lost! At times I found it hard to recollect in what country we were! Oh! the world, such as ours was, is a sweet, sweet world!
At last the blow fell. He came to me one morning, as white as a sheet, with an old, soiled copy of the Times in his hand.
"Read, Adrea," he cried, thrusting it into my hand. "A horrible thing has happened!"
I let the paper fall through my fingers. An agony of fear was upon me. "I know! I know! Do not ask me to read it."
"You knew, and you did not tell me!"
"No! I—no!"
There was a deadly swimming before my eyes, and a throbbing in my ears. I sank back, grateful for the unconsciousness which gave me respite, however short. When recovered, I was on the verge of a fever; and Paul, seeing my condition, did not refer to the news which had been such a shock to him. But for an hour the next day he was away from me, writing letters home. When he returned there was a restraint between us. He was kind as ever, but restless and unsettled. As yet he had no suspicion, but I could see that he was longing to get back to England.... The thought was like madness to me.
Then came the beginning of the end. We were staying in a villa which we had rented for a month near Florence, and one day we drove into the city together to do some shopping. Paul was at the post-office, and I was crossing the square to go to him, when of a sudden I felt a hand upon my dress, and a hoarse whisper in my ear. I started round in terror. A man, pale and hollow-eyed, stood by my side. It was Gomez!
"Listen quickly!" he said. "I must not stay by your side! You are in danger! The English police are upon your track!"
I caught hold of the railing to prevent myself from falling. Above my head, a little flock of pigeons lazily flapped their wings against the deep blue sky. All around, the sunlit air was full of laughing voices, and gaily dressed crowds of people were passing backwards and forwards only a few yards away. Already, one or two were glancing in my direction curiously. In a moment Paul would come out of the post-office, looking for me. I made a great effort, and steadied myself.