"No, I won't be reasonable; I can't be reasonable," I said; "how can I be reasonable when I'm married to a fool? If you're going, go; and if you're staying, stay. I'm so miserable, I don't care which."
I covered my face with my hands and rocked myself to and fro, hearing nothing but my own sobs. I expected to feel his hand on my head every moment, and to hear him say how he adored me. For we had quarreled many a time before, and he had even gone away, and sulked all day with me. But he never failed to beg me to forgive him and be friends again. I did not want to look up into his face, lest I should give way, and be friends before he said he was sorry. But he did not touch me, nor speak, though I sobbed louder and louder.
"Sidney!" I said at last, with my face still hidden from him.
But even then he did not speak; and by and by I lifted up my head, and could not see him anywhere. There seemed to be no one near me; but there were plenty of corners in the ruins where he could hide himself and watch me. I sat still for a long time to tire him out. Then I got up, and strolled very slowly down toward the village. There is a crucifix by the side of the narrow fort-road, larger than most of the others, and there on the cross hangs a wooden figure of Jesus Christ, so worn and weather-beaten that it looks almost a skeleton, and all bleached and pale as if it had been hanging there through thousands of years. It seemed very desolate and sad that evening, and I stood looking at it, with the tears in my eyes, making it all dim and misty. The sun was going down, and just then it passed behind the peak of one of the precipices, and a long stream of light fell across a pine forest more than a mile away, and into that forest a lonely man was passing, and he looked like Sidney. My heart sank suddenly; it is a strange thing to feel one's heart sinking, and I felt all at once as desolate and forsaken as the image on the cross above me.
"Sidney!" I called in as clear and loud a tone as I could. "Sidney!"
But if that man, lost now in the pine forest, was Sidney, he was too far off to hear me, wasn't he? Still I could not give up the hope that he was hiding among the ruins, and I called and called again, louder and louder, for I began to be terrified. It was all in vain. The sun set, and the air grew chilly, and they rang the Angelus in the clock-tower. The long twilight began, and the flowers shut up their pretty leaves. The cold was very sharp and biting, and made me shiver. So I called him once again in a despairing voice.
"Oh!" I said, looking up to the worn, white face of the Christ upon the cross, as if the wooden image could hear me, "I'm so miserable, and I am so wicked."
That really made me feel better, and my passion went away in a moment. Yes, I would be good, I said to myself, and never vex him again. I knew I ought to be good to him, for he was so much above me, and ran such risks to marry me. Perhaps I ought to be more obedient to him than if I had married a man who kept a shop, like father. Sometimes I think I should have been happier if I had; but that is nonsense, you know. And Sidney has never been rough or rude to me, as many men would be, if I went into such tempers with them. He is always a gentleman; always.
"I told him I was passionate," I said, half-aloud, I think; "and he ought to have believed me. And oh! to think how anxious Aunt Rachel is about me, never knowing where I am or what has happened to me for nearly nine months! It is that makes me so miserable and cross; I can't help flying out at him; but he says I must not tell or write for his sake. Oh! I will be better, I will be good. And he's so fond of me; I know he can't be gone far away. I expect he's gone back to the inn, and will be waiting for his supper, and I'd better make haste."
But I could not walk quickly, for I felt faint and giddy. Once or twice I stumbled against a stone, and Sidney was not there to help me. When I reached the inn I looked into the room where we had our meals; but he was not there. And he was nowhere in our great barn of a bedroom. His portmanteau was there, and all his things, so I knew he could not stay long away. I made signs to Chiara, the maid, for I cannot speak Italian or German; but she did not understand me. So I went to bed and cried myself to sleep.