She smoothed the old pink damask cushion under his head, and instinctively looked to see if he had all he needed within reach, before she thought of sitting down in the chair Lamberti had placed ready for her.
"Tell me," he said, in a low and somewhat anxious voice, "you did not mean it? You were out of temper, or you were annoyed by something, or—I do not know! Something happened that made you write, and you had sent the letter before you knew what you were doing—"
He broke off, quite sure of her answer. He thought she turned pale, though the light was not strong and brought the green colour of the closed blinds into the room.
"Hush!" she exclaimed soothingly, and she sat down beside him, still holding his hand. "I have come expressly to talk to you about it all, because letters only make misunderstandings, and there must not be any more misunderstandings between us two."
"No, never again!" He looked up with love in his hollow eyes, not suspecting what she meant. "I have forgotten all that was in that letter, and I wish to forget it. You never wrote that you did not love me, nor that you loved another man. It is all gone, quite gone, and I shall never remember it again."
Cecilia sighed and gazed into his face sadly. He looked so ill and weak that she wondered how she could be cruel enough to tell him the truth, though she had risked her good name to get a chance of speaking plainly. It seemed like bringing a cup of cold water to the lips of a man dying of thirst, only to take it away again untasted and leave him to his fate. She pitied him with all her heart, but there was nothing in her compassion that at all resembled love. It was the purest and most friendly affection, of the sort that lasts a lifetime and can devote itself in almost any sacrifice; but it was all quite clear and comprehensible, without the smallest element of the inexplicable attraction that is deaf, and dumb, and, above all, blind, and which proceeds from the deep prime cause and mover of nature, and mates lions in the wilderness and birds in the air, and men and women among their fellows, two and two, from generation to generation.
"Guido," said Cecilia, after a long silence, "do you not think that two people can be very, very fond of each other all their lives, and trust each other, and like to be together as much as possible, without being married?"
She spoke quietly and steadily, trying to make her voice sound more gentle than ever before; but there was no possibility of mistaking her meaning. His thin hand started and shook under her soothing touch, and then drew itself away. The light went out of his eyes and the rings of shadow round them grew visibly darker as he turned his head painfully on the damask cushion.
"Is that what you have come to say?" he asked, in a groan.
Cecilia leaned back in her chair and folded her hands. She felt as if she had killed an unresisting, loving creature, as a sacrifice for her fault.