So while the dark wore away to dawn, his thought began and ended with the same desolate cry.
As the first light came through the windows, he blew out the candles. He must go—though it shut him again from sight of Allegra—though it meant forever.
CHAPTER XLII
GORDON TELLS A STORY
Gordon threw the window wide. The sun had broken through the mist, the lilies were awake in their beds, and the acacias were shaking the dew from their solemn harmonies of green and olive. How sweet the laurel smelled!
A long time he stood there. At length he turned into the room. He collected his smaller belongings for Fletcher to pack, then drew out a portmanteau. It was filled with books and loose manuscript, gathered by the valet when he had removed from Venice.
As he re-read the pages, Gordon flushed with a sense of shame. Full of beauty as they were, would Shelley have written them? Or would Teresa, who treasured one book of his and had loved those simple lines etched on the fungus, read these with like approval?
An aching dissatisfaction—a fiery recrudescent distaste seized him. He rolled the leaves together and descended to the garden. At the base of a stone sun-dial he set the roll funnel-shape and knelt to strike a light.
He had not seen Teresa nor heard her approach till she caught his arm.
“What is it you burn?” she asked.
“The beginning of a poem I wrote a long time ago, named ‘Don Juan’.”