In the gray of the early morning of the second day, just as the sun rose and cast a few straggling gleams into the room, Enrica called faintly to Pipa. She knew Pipa when she came. It seemed as if Enrica had waked out of a long, deep sleep. She felt no pain, but an excessive weakness. She touched her forehead and her hair. She handled the sheets—then extended both her hands to Pipa, as if she had been buried and asked to be raised up again. She tried to sit up, but—she fell back upon her pillow. Pipa's arms were round her in an instant. She put back the long hair that fell upon Enrica's face, and poured into her mouth a few drops of a cordial Fra Pacifico had left for her. Pipa dared not speak—Pipa dared not breathe—so great was her joy. At length she ventured to take one of Enrica's hands in hers, pressed it gently and said to her in a low voice:
"You must be very quiet. We are all here."
Enrica looked up at Pipa, surprised and frightened; then her eyes wandered round in search of something. She was evidently dwelling upon some idea she could not express. She raised her hand, opened it slowly, and gazed at it. Her hand was empty.
"Where is—?" Enrica asked, in a voice like a sigh—then she stopped, and gazed up again distressfully into Pipa's face. Pipa knew that Count Nobili's letter had been taken by Fra Pacifico. Now she bent over Enrica in an agony of fear lest, when her reason came and she missed that letter, she should sink back again and die.
With the sound of her own voice all came back to Enrica in an instant. She closed her eyes, and longed never to open them again! "Gone! gone! forever!" sounded in her ears like a rushing of great waters. Then she lay for a long time quite still. She could not bear to speak to Pipa. His name—Nobili's name—was sacred. If Pipa knew what Nobili had done, she might speak ill of him. That Enrica could not bear. Yet she should like to know who had taken his letter.
Her brain was very weak, yet it worked incessantly. She asked herself all manner of questions in a helpless way; but as her fluttering pulses settled, and the blood returned to its accustomed channels, faintly coloring her cheek, the truth came to her. Insulted!—abandoned!—forgotten! She thought it all over bit by bit. Each thought as it rose in her mind seemed to freeze the returning warmth within her. That letter—oh, if she could only find that letter! She tried to recall every phrase and put a sense to it. How had she deceived him? What could Nobili mean? What had she done to be talked of in Lucca? Marescotti—who was he? At first she was so stunned she forgot his name; then it came to her. Yes, the poet—Marescotti—Trenta's friend—who had raved on the Guinigi Tower. What was he to her? Marry Marescotti! Oh! who could have said it?
Gradually, as Enrica's mind became clearer, lying there so still with no sound but Pipa's measured breathing, she felt to its full extent how Nobili had wronged her. Why had he not come himself and asked her if all this were true? To leave her thus forever! Without even asking her—oh, how cruel! She believed in him, why did he not believe in her? No one had ever yet told her a lie; within herself she felt no power of deceit. She could not understand it in others, nor the falseness of the world. Now she must learn it! Then a great longing and tenderness came over her. She loved Nobili still. Even though he had smitten her so sorely, she loved him—she loved him, and she forgave him! But stronger and stronger grew the thought, even while these longings swept over her like great waves, that Nobili was unworthy of her. Should she love him less for that? Oh, no! He was unworthy of her—yet she yearned after him. He had left her—but in her heart Nobili should forever sit enthroned—and she would worship him!
And they had been so happy, so more than happy—from the first moment they had met—and he had shattered it! Oh, his love for her was dead and buried out of sight! What was life to her without Nobili? Oh, those forebodings that had clung about her from the very moment he had left Corellia! Now she could understand them. Never to see him again!—was it possible? A great pity came upon her for herself. No one, she was sure, could ever have suffered like her—no one—no one. This thought for some time pursued her closely. There was a terrible comfort in it. Alas! all her life would be suffering now!
As Enrica lay there, her face turned toward the wall, and her eyes closed (Pipa watching her, thinking she had dozed), suddenly her bosom heaved. She gave a wild cry. The pent-up tears came pouring down her cheeks, and sob after sob shook her from head to foot.
This burst of grief saved her—Fra Pacifico said so when he came down later. "Death had passed very near her," he said, "but now she would recover."