"But we can always love each other just the same," Sabina said, and her voice was warm and soft.
"Yes, always, and that will not make it easier to live without you," he answered rather harshly.
"You need not," she said, after an instant's pause.
He turned suddenly, startled, not understanding, wondering what she could mean. She met his eyes quite quietly, and he saw how deep and steady hers were, and the light in them.
"You need not live without me unless you please," she said.
"But I must, since I cannot marry you, and you understand that I could not be divorced—"
"My mother has just told me that no decent man will marry me, because all the world knows that I stayed at the palace that night. She must be right, for she could have no object in saying it if it were not true, could she? Then what does it matter how any one talks about me now? I will go with you. We cannot marry, but we shall always be together."
Malipieri's face expressed his amazement.
"But it is impossible!" he cried. "You cannot do that! You do not know what you are saying!"
"Oh, yes, I do! That poor, kind old Sassi has left me all he had, and I can go where I please. I will go with you. Would you rather have me shut up in a convent to die? That is what my mother will try to do with me, and she will tell people that I was 'mad, poor girl'! Do you think I do not know her? She wants this little sum of money that I am to have, too, as if she and the others had not spent all I should have had. Do you think I am bound to obey my mother, if she takes me to the convent door, and tells me that I am to stay there for the rest of my life?"