Neither spoke, but wandered up and down in vague delight.
Why was it that at this moment Nobili's thoughts strayed to Lucca, and to Nera Boccarini?—Nera rose before him, glowing and velvet-eyed, as on that night she had so tempted him. He drove her image from him. Nera was dead to him. Dead?—Fool!—And did he think that any thing can die? Do not our very thoughts rise up and haunt us in some subtile consequence of after-life? Nothing dies—nothing is isolated. Each act of daily intercourse—the merest trifle, as the gravest issue—makes up the chain of life. Link by link that chain draws on, weighted with good or ill, and clings about us to the very grave.
Thinking of Nera, Nobili's color changed—a dark look clouded his ready smile. Enrica asked, "What pains you?"
"Nothing, love, nothing," Nobili answered vaguely, "only I fear I am not worthy of you."
Enrica raised her eyes to his. Such a depth of tenderness and purity beamed from them, that Nobili asked himself with shame, how he could have forgotten her. With this blue-eyed angel by his side it seemed impossible, and yet—
Pressing Enrica's hand more tightly, he placed it fondly on his own. "So small, so true," he murmured, gazing at it as it lay on his broad palm.
"Yes, Nobili, true to death," she answered, with a sigh.
Still holding her hand, "Enrica," he said, solemnly, "I swear to love you and no other, while I live. God is my witness!"
As he lifted up his head in the earnestness with which he spoke, the sunshine, streaming downward, shone full upon his face.
Enrica trembled. "Oh! do not say too much," she cried, gazing up at him entranced.