"I was wrong to say it," he answered, in a more gentle tone. "There was perhaps one exception to the rule."
Ghisleri grew even more careful of his speech after that. But he did not see Laura often before she went away northward for the summer. The spring was going fast, and the time was coming when Rome would be its quiet old-fashioned self again for those few who loved it well enough to face the heat of July and August. Almost every one was thinking of going away. The Prince and Princess of Gerano were going out to the castle earlier than usual, for the news of Adele grew steadily worse. Francesco now had the doctor out regularly three times a week, and was forced to lead an existence he detested. His wife was by this time quite unable to get rest without taking very large quantities of chloral, and at times her sufferings were such that it seemed almost advisable to give her morphia. Every one, however, who brought intelligence from Gerano agreed in saying that she did her best to keep up, and seemed to dread the idea of an illness which might keep her permanently in her room. Whenever she felt able she insisted on driving out and on going through the regular round of monotonous country occupations. Her father and step-mother therefore determined to go out and help Francesco to take care of her, and make her existence as bearable as possible. Amongst all her friends she was spoken of with the utmost compassion, and no one ever suggested that her illness could proceed from any such cause as Ghisleri believed to be at the root of it.
A few days before Laura Arden was to go away Donald came to Pietro's room in the morning, with a very grave face. Lady Herbert, he said, thought that Ghisleri would understand why she did not write, but sent Donald in person with a verbal message. She was going away, and was about to give up the apartment in which she had spent the winter, without any intention of taking it again in the following year. There were certain things that had belonged to Lord Herbert—Lady Herbert had no home and did not like to send them to Lord Lulworth—would Ghisleri take charge of them in her absence? Pietro, of course, assented, and two hours later Donald arrived with a large carriage load of boxes. Ghisleri looked on with a very unpleasant sensation in his throat as his old friend's effects were brought up stairs and deposited in a room where he kept such things of his own. When they were all piled together in a corner, he took an old green curtain and covered them with it, spreading it carefully over them with his own hands. Then he locked the door and went away. Some men and women when they die seem to leave something of life behind them, which the mere sight of anything that has belonged to them has power to recall most vividly to the perceptions of those who have known them and loved them. Ghisleri understood Laura Arden's feeling about her husband's belongings. He knew, or thought he knew, that from the moment her child had been given to her, she had desired that no material object should revive the sorrow she had felt so deeply. The memory she cherished was wholly spiritual, and upon its remaining so her peace of mind largely depended. The one Herbert was to live in the other—and there must not be two. Not every one, perhaps, would have understood her so readily.
The day came for bidding her good-bye. It was with a somewhat heavy heart that he went up the stairs of her house for the last time. Much of the little happiness he had known during the past months was associated with the place and with her, and not a little of the sorrow as well. The drawing-room was bare, and had lost the comfortable, inhabited look which even a furnished lodging takes from all the little objects a woman brings to it, and which she alone knows how to dispose and arrange as though they were in constant use, thereby at once producing the impression that the habitation she has chosen has been lived in long.
Once more Ghisleri sat in the familiar chair near the open window, and once more Laura took her place in the corner of the great sofa.
"I have come to say good-bye," he began. "You are still decided to go to-morrow, I suppose."
"Yes. I have not changed my plans. Please do not come to the station to see me off, nor send flowers, nor do any of the things which are generally done. I would rather not see any one I know after leaving this house."
"May I write to you?" asked Ghisleri.
"Of course. Why not?"
"I do not know, I am sure. I thought it better to ask you. Some women hate correspondence except with their nearest and dearest. I will give you the news of Rome during the wild gaiety of July and August."