Tita’s voice spoke again, eagerly: “You will come, Excellence? The signore is from Ravenna now, at one of his estates in Romagna—you can see her! None shall know, if you come with me. You will, Excellence?”
To see her again! Gordon had not realized how much it meant till to-night, when the possibility found him quivering from his disappointment at the convent. A stolen hour with her! Why not? Yet—discovery. Her husband’s servants, spies upon her every moment! To steal secretly to her thus unbidden and perhaps crowd upon her a worse catastrophe than that at San Lazzarro!
He shook his head. “No. Not unless she knows I am here and bids me come.”
“I will go and tell her, Excellence!”
“Tell her I did not know she was in Ravenna, but that—that I would die to serve her. Say that!”
“You will wait here, Excellence?”
“Yes.”
Tita swung round and disappeared.
It seemed an immeasurable time that Gordon waited, striding fiercely up and down, listening to every sound. At the inn a late diligence had unloaded its contingent of chattering tourists for the night. He could hear phrases spoken in English. The words bore a myriad-voiced suggestion, yet how little their appeal meant to him at that moment! All England, save for Ada, was less to him then than a single house there in Ravenna—and a convent buried in the forest under that moon. On such another perfect day and amber night, he thought, he had found Teresa’s miniature and had fled with Jane Clermont. Now substance and shadow had replaced one another. To-day Jane had touched his life vaguely and painfully in passing from it! Teresa was the sole reality. What would she say? What word would Tita bring?
Long as it seemed, it was in fact less than an hour before the gondolier stood again before him.