As Nobili speaks, his strong heart goes out to her in speechless longings. If Enrica had looked into his eyes they would have told her that he never had loved her as now! And they were parted!
Enrica puts out her hand timidly. Her lips move as if to speak, but no sound comes. Nobili rises; he takes her hand within both his own. He kisses it reverently.
"Dear hand—" he murmurs, "and it was mine!"
Released from his, the dainty little hand falls to her side. She sighs deeply. There is the old charm in Nobili's voice—so sweet, so subtile. The tones fall upon her ear like strains of passionate music. A storm of emotion sweeps across her face. She has forgotten all in the rapture of his presence. Yes!—that voice! Had it not been raised but a few hours before at the altar to repudiate her? How can she believe in him? How surrender herself to the glamour of his words? Remembering all this, despair comes over her. Again Enrica shrinks from him. She bursts into tears and hides her face with her hands.
Enrica's distrust of him, her silence, her tears, cut Nobili to the soul. He knows he deserves it. Ah!—with her there before him, how he curses himself for ever having doubted her! Every justification suddenly leaves him. He is utterly confounded. The gossip of the club—Count Marescotti and his miserable verses—the marchesa herself—what are they all beside the purity of those saint-like eyes? Nera, too—false, fickle, sensual Nera—a mere thing of flesh and blood—he had left her for Nera! Was he mad?
At that moment, of all living men, Count Nobili seemed to himself the most unworthy! He must go—he did not deserve to stay!
"Enrica—before I leave you, speak to me one word of forgiveness—I implore you!"
As he speaks their eyes meet. Yes, she is his own Enrica—unchanged, unsullied!—the idol is intact within its shrine—the sanctuary is as he had left it! No rude touch had soiled that atmosphere of purity and freshness that floated like an aureole around her!
How could he leave her?—if they must part, he would hear his fate from her own lips. Enrica is leaning against the wall speechless, her face shaded by her hand. Big tears are trickling through her fingers. Unable to support herself she clings to a chair, then seats herself. And Nobili, pale with passion stands by, and dares not so much as to touch her—dares not touch her, although she is his wife!
In the fury of his self-reproach, he digs his hands into the masses of thick chestnut curls that lie disordered about his head.