‘No!’ she said with sudden vehemence. ‘It was not right, it was wrong! It was not innocent, it was a temptation! It is gone. I will never think of it again, nor of him, if God will help me to forget.’
‘I am trying to help you, too, Maria.’
The words cut her to the quick. He meant them so truly, he spoke them so humbly, he loved her so dearly; yet she felt her flesh creep at his touch and shrank under his least caress, do what she could.
‘I know you are, Diego,’ she managed to say, and then she collected her strength to tell what was left. ‘It lasted a month or six weeks altogether,’ she said, going on quickly. ‘He had exchanged into another regiment in order not to be quartered in Rome. He was in Milan then, and he was here on a short leave. He applied to be allowed to come back to the Piedmont Lancers. While he was in Milan we wrote to each other. We promised to be faithful and innocent; we told each other that we would love as spirits love, and meet in heaven. Then your mother died, and you wrote me that first long letter, and I answered it; and on the same day I wrote to him and told him he must not come to Rome, that we must never see each other again because you were going to take me back. But it was too late, the matter had been settled already, and he had to come.’
‘Of course,’ said Montalto, in a dull tone, when she paused.
‘I sent for him then. That was the last time, the time I told you of. He came, and we said good-bye.’
A long pause followed, and Montalto did not move.
‘Is that all you wished to tell me?’ he asked at length.
‘I let him kiss my cheek twice,’ Maria said, very low.
This time her husband turned towards her quickly, and she saw how very pale he was.