The Valley of Decision

by Edith Wharton

With nightfall the spirits of both had sunk. Fulvia walked ahead in silence and Odo read a mute apprehension in her drooping outline. Every step brought them nearer to the point they both feared to face, and though each knew what lay in the other's thoughts neither dared break the silence. Odo's mind turned anxiously to the incidents of the morning, to the finding of the ducal coat-of-arms, and to all the possibilities it suggested. What errand save one could have carried an envoy from Pianura to that remote hamlet among the hills? He could scarcely doubt that it was in pursuit of himself that the ducal messenger travelled; but with what object was the journey undertaken? Was he to be recalled in obedience to some new whim of the Duke's? Or had some unforeseen change—he dared not let his thoughts define it—suddenly made his presence needful in Pianura? It was more probable that the possibility of his flight with Fulvia had been suggested to the Duke by the ecclesiastical authorities, and that the same hand which had parted them before was again secretly at work. In any case, it was Odo's first business to see his companion safely across the border; and in that endeavour he had now little fear of being thwarted. If the Duke's messenger awaited them at Peschiera he waited in vain; and though their flight across the lake might be known before dawn it would then be no easy matter to overtake them.

In an hour's time, as Odo had hoped, they were putting off from the shore in a blunt-nosed fishing-boat which was the lightest craft the village could provide. The lake was stark calm, and the two boatmen, silhouetted against the moonlight, drove the boat forward with even vigorous strokes. Fulvia, shivering in the autumnal chill, had drawn her hood close about her and sat silent, her face in shade. Measured by their secret apprehensions the boat's progress seemed at first indescribably slow; but gradually the sounds from the shore grew fainter, and the fugitives felt themselves alone in a world enclosed by the moonlit circle of the waters.

As they advanced this sense of isolation and security grew deeper and more impressive. The motionless surface of the lake was enclosed in a wall of mountains which the moonlight seemed to vein with marble. A sky in which the stars were dissolved in white radiance curved high above their heads; and not a sail flecked the lake or a cloud the sky. The boat seemed suspended alone in some ethereal medium.

Presently one of the boatmen spoke to the other and glanced toward the north. Then the second silently shipped his oar and hoisted the sail. Hardly had he made it fast when a fresh of wind came down the lake and they began to stretch across the bay with spreading canvas. The wind was contrary, but Odo welcomed it, for he saw at once that it would be quicker work to tack to the other shore than to depend on the oars. The scene underwent a sudden change. The silver mirror over which they had appeared to glide was shivered into sparkling fragments, and in the enveloping rush and murmur of the night the boat woke to a creaking straining activity.

The man at the rudder suddenly pointed to a huddle of lights to the south. "Peschiera."

Odo laughed. "We shall soon show it our heels," said he.

The other boatman shrugged his shoulders. "Even an enemy's roof may serve to keep out the storm," he observed philosophically.

"The storm? What storm?"

The man pointed to the north. Against the sky hung a little black cloud, the merest flaw in the perfect curve of the night.

"The lake is shrewish at this season," the boatman continued. "Did your excellencies burn a candle before starting?"