"I? But I never told her a word!"
"Didn't you?"
"Don't you believe me? To explain your silence, I said you were ill."
"Oh, did you?" he repeated, still incredulous. "Well, I was imagining it was her advice had made you less—unkind."
"Unkind? What do you mean?" she asked, coldly.
Antonio was perhaps frightened in his turn. Had he deceived himself, thinking Regina penitent and ready to come home? He became animated, and found that beginning of speech which he had sought. The hour of explanation had come.
Regina asked nothing better; but to her surprise she did not feel the commotion, the joy, the tenderness, which she had anticipated. She was distressed. Antonio had forgiven her; he had suffered; he had come, resolved to take her back at all costs; he loved her more than ever, with true passion; he was united to her by all the strong ties of his heart and his senses. But she was not content; she was not properly stirred. Something was standing between her husband and herself—something inexorable. They walked as of old, their arms round each other, their fingers interlaced; but there was a whole gulf between them, a whole immense river of cold, colourless water, perfidiously silent, like that river down there below the road, scarce visible between the black trees in the black night.
Regina was certainly the clearer-sighted of the two, and she now saw a mysterious thing. Once it was her soul which had escaped Antonio, hiding itself behind a world of littlenesses, of vanity, of vain desires and ambitions; now, on the contrary, it was his soul which some occult and violent force was trying to wrest away from her. She attempted to fathom this mystery.
"What is it? He loves me; he has forgiven me! But he mistrusts, is afraid of me. Why is this?"