“You couldn’t have been much in love with her,” said Stanmer.
“I was not—three months after.”
“If you had been you would have come back—three days after.”
“So doubtless it seems to you. All I can say is that it was the great effort of my life. Being a military man, I have had on various occasions to face time enemy. But it was not then I needed my resolution; it was when I left Florence in a post-chaise.”
Stanmer turned about the room two or three times, and then he said: “I don’t understand! I don’t understand why she should have told you that Camerino had killed her husband. It could only damage her.”
“She was afraid it would damage her more that I should think he was her lover. She wished to say the thing that would most effectually persuade me that he was not her lover—that he could never be. And then she wished to get the credit of being very frank.”
“Good heavens, how you must have analysed her!” cried my companion, staring.
“There is nothing so analytic as disillusionment. But there it is. She married Camerino.”
“Yes, I don’t lime that,” said Stanmer. He was silent a while, and then he added—“Perhaps she wouldn’t have done so if you had remained.”
He has a little innocent way! “Very likely she would have dispensed with the ceremony,” I answered, drily.