He hesitated a moment as if in thought, and when he spoke it was with judicial calm.
"And would you have gone—a year ago?"
She was silent so long that he would have repeated the question, but at his first word the answer came with a wave of self-abasement.
"I—I suppose not."
And that was all.
During the next few days the subject of Mariana's decision was not mentioned. Both felt a constraint in alluding to it, and yet both felt the inevitableness of the final hour. Anthony's pride had long since sealed his lips over the expressions of an unwished-for affection, and Mariana had grown chary of words.
But both went quietly along their daily lives, Anthony working at his desk while Mariana gathered together her shabby garments and made ready for the moment which by word and look they both ignored.
Then at last, when the night before her going came, Mariana spoke. They had just risen from the supper-table and the slipshod maid of work had carried off the unemptied tray. Mariana had eaten nothing. Her face was flushed, and she was moving excitedly about the room.
"I go to-morrow," she began, feverishly.
Algarcife looked up from a book through which he was searching for a date.