"I think I shall soon come back, as I promised. I will write to you. You, too, will perhaps feel relief at not seeing me suffer."
"Relief," she said. "No, never."
A choking sob quivered in her voice. She added, immediately, in a tone of heart-breaking anguish:
"Tullio, Tullio, tell me the truth! Do you hate me? Tell me the truth!"
Her eyes interrogated me, more agonized even than her words. For an instant her very soul seemed fixed on me. And those poor eyes, wide open, that pure-looking brow, that contracted mouth, that emaciated chin, all that frail, unhappy face which contrasted with the lower ignominious deformity, and those hands, those frail, sorrowful hands that stretched toward me with such a supplicating gesture, pained me more than ever, moved me to pity and sympathy.
"Believe me, Juliana; believe me once for all. I feel no resentment toward you, and I never shall. I do not forget that I am your debtor; I forget nothing. Have I not already proved it? Be reassured. Think now of your deliverance. And, besides, who knows? But, in any case, Juliana, I will not disappoint you. Let me go for the time being. Perhaps a few days' absence will do me good. I shall be calmer when I return. Calmness is very necessary for what is to follow. You will need all my assistance."
She said:
"Thank you. Do with me what you will."
A human chant now came to us through the darkness, covering the shrill sound of the rural concert—perhaps a choir of reapers in the moonlight on some distant field.
"Do you hear?" I said.