‘I wish to. I shall try to. If anything could make a man believe in God, it is the love of such a woman as you are.’
‘You have my love,’ Maria answered. ‘And some day you will believe as I do, but in your own way, and we shall be together where there are no partings. Yes, I am sure that we could have lived as we meant to, and could have helped each other to rise higher and higher, far above these dying bodies of ours. But we shall reach the good end more quickly by our suffering than we ever could by our happiness.’
‘That may be,’ said Castiglione, ‘but one thing is far more certain: we must part now, cost what it may.’
‘Cost what it may!’ She pressed her hands to her eyes and was silent a little while.
‘Has he spoken of Leone in his letters?’ Castiglione asked after a time, in a tone that was almost timid.
Maria dropped her hands upon her knees at once and met his look.
‘Not to me,’ she answered. ‘But he gave orders about the child’s room to the steward he sent from Montalto. Everything was to be arranged for Leone just as I wished. That was all.’
‘Will he be kind to the boy, do you think?’ asked Castiglione, very low.
‘I know he will try to be,’ Maria answered generously.
That was her greatest cause for fear in the future; it was the stumbling-block she saw in the way of Montalto’s wish to take her back; but although he might treat the boy coldly, and avoid seeing him, and insist that he should be sent away to a school as soon as he was old enough, she believed that her husband would be just, and she was sure she should leave him if he were not. There was one sacrifice which should not be exacted of her: she would not tamely submit to see her child ill-treated. At that she would rebel, and she would be dangerous for any man to face.