"We have been separated for years," said Ella voicelessly.
This explanation restored the Marchese's steadiness. He immediately guessed the cause of the separation; did he not know Beatrice Biancona? The one name made all clear to him, and left no doubt as to whose side the fault lay on now. The Captain was right in his conjecture; the discovery, instead of frightening Cesario away, rather made him break forth in passionate partizanship for the beloved and injured wife.
"Well then, Signora," said he quickly, "it only rests with you, whether you will recognise a claim, which Rinaldo founds upon a past, which exists no longer, and which he himself surely destroyed. You alone have to decide whether I may still approach you, if in future I may dedicate a feeling to you, which I confess openly is now more than the cold admiration of a stranger, and which one day you must accept or refuse."
He spoke with all the ardour of a long suppressed emotion, but also with the noble, immovable confidence of a man, to whom the beloved one is elevated above all doubt, and the language was sufficiently plain; it pressed urgently for a decision, from which the wife shrank back tremblingly.
"Yes, indeed Eleonore, you must decide," said Reinhold, now taking up the word. His voice all at once sounded unnaturally calm, but the glance which hung openly on his wife with an expression as if in the next moment the fiat of life or death should fall from her lips, showed better how it was with him. For one second's duration both their eyes met, and Ella could have been no woman had she not now seen that the most perfect, annihilating revenge lay in her hand. One single "Yes" from her lips would avenge all that she had suffered. Slowly she turned to Cesario.
"Marchese Tortoni--I beg you to desist--I still consider myself bound."
A short portentous pause followed the words. Ella saw what a struggle between pain and pride of the man, who would not show how deeply he had been struck, went forward in the young Italian's beautiful features; she saw him bow to her, without speaking a word, and turn to go; but courage failed her to cast a glance to the other side.
"Cesario!" cried Reinhold, going a step towards him as if in rising repentance. "We are friends."
"We were so," replied the Marchese, coldly. "You surely comprehend, Rinaldo, that this hour separates us. My accusation against you I must certainly retract! your wife's explanation exonerates you from it--farewell, Signora."
He left the husband and wife alone. Neither spoke during the next few minutes. Ella bent low over one of the perfumed flowers, and a few tears fell upon the broad shining leaves. Then her name was borne to her ear by a trembling breath--she seemed not to hear it.