“My love!” he said. “My love!”
The first fact that came to her out of the void was that of his tears. A troubled look crossed her brow.
“All is well. Do you remember?”
Her eyes, roaming at first bewildered, saw the dark chapel, the flaring, garish candles, caught the expression of his face, still drawn and haggard, and white with strain. All came back upon her in a surge. She half raised herself, his arm supporting her. They two there alone—the priest gone—the dusk fallen to night. She had succeeded! Gordon had come—his arms held her!
In the joyful revulsion, she turned her face to him and threw her arms about his neck, feeling herself caught up in his embrace, every fiber shuddering with the terror passed, weeping with weak delight, clinging to him as to her only refuge, still dizzy and faint, but with safe assurance and peace.
Looking down at her where she rested, her face buried on his breast, her whole form shaken with feeling, murmuring broken words, slowly calling back her strength, Gordon felt doubt and indecision drop from his mind. The convent was not for her—not by all she had suffered that day! Only one thing else remained: to take her away forever, beyond the papal frontier—with him! Fate and the world had given her to him now by the resistless logic of circumstance.
He reckoned swiftly:
The news by this time had reached the casa in Ravenna. Another half-hour at most and choice would be taken from their hands. They must lose no time. Yet whither? Where could he go, that hatred would not pursue? To what Ultima Thule could he fly, that the poison barb would not follow to wound her happiness? Where to live? Never in England! In the East,—in Greece, perhaps, the land of his youthful dreams? It was a barbarian pashawlik, under the foot of Ottoman greed; neither a fit nor secure habitation. In Italy, where her soul must always be? Tuscany—Pisa, where Shelley lived—was not far distant. They might reach its borders in safety. There they would be beyond the rule of Romagna, out of the states of the Church.
“Dearest,” asked Gordon, “are you strong enough to ride?”
She stirred instantly in his arms and stood up, though unsteadily. “Yes, yes, some one will come. We must go quickly.”