"Judith!"
"Forgive me. I ought not to have said it, but it came from my heart, as it were, and forced its way through my lips. And it is perfectly true. Here life is hard enough; what will it be at home? But voluntary death would be a dreadful misfortune for you. Your conscience would never know peace. It is a frightful feeling that the death of a beloved one is on your soul. You, Agenor, shall never experience that. When will you start?"
"Let me consider it. How can I go when your mind is filled with such hideous fancies, and I know you are tormenting yourself in vain?"
"Do not let us talk of it. Words cannot change the circumstances. You ought to go, if only for love of me. I feel I should be better if I could be alone awhile. What else is there to hinder you? Fear of Raphael's revenge and the court? I have thought of it frequently the past few days, and cannot think you have much to fear. The defendant is a count, of an ancient line, who has brought another soul into the Holy Catholic church, while the plaintiff is a common Jew, and the trial will take place in Galicia. Believe me, Agenor, if you had dishonored and deceived me and then kicked me into the street, and I, the betrayed and ruined, had accused you and asked for judgment against you, the judges would have looked upon it as a good joke. I say this without bitterness; it is the unvarnished truth. Again, I say, you must go."
Again he besought time for consideration. "Suppose she finds all out in the meantime? But how can she when her address is known only to myself and the Vienna banker." These were his thoughts. He was convinced he would be unable to detain her in Italy later than April. If he went he might make preparations, and perhaps take counsel with a clever lawyer.
He took his departure soon after Christmas. Even that drew their estranged hearts no closer, despite the gentle and kindly words their lips uttered. She watched him with dry eyes as the carriage rolled through the park gates. "Au revoir!" he cried. "Au revoir!" she answered, waving her handkerchief.
It was more quiet than ever in the palazzo by the Porta San Michele. Only old Jan, who stayed behind to protect the women, went occasionally into the town. Judith never went beyond the park enclosures. She passed some of her time in caring for her child, some in reading books sent from Innsbruck by Agenor; but for the most part she sat motionless in a brown study.
Faithful Hamia crept about anxiously, continually inventing excuses for going into the drawing-room where Judith sat. This clever girl had entered Judith's service at Czernowitz, during their journey, and knew very little of her mistress's early history. But she knew of her father's death, and her pity made her very sympathetic.
"If the count only knew what I know," she sometimes said, angrily, "he would write oftener." But in this she was wrong. He was not careless, and wrote at every break in the journey. But the longest and most tender letters would not have lightened Judith's heart. He wrote that he had found much to do, and went out very little. Now, he said, briefly, that the fear of the courts was really superfluous, and now, that he had heard Raphael was quite well and was managing the factory with great energy.
She thanked him heartily each time, and assured him that she and the child were well; but her letters were laconic, and she wrote not one syllable of that which occupied her mind. If she really believed that isolation would heal her sore heart, she deceived herself. Day and night the picture of her father's death-bed was before her eyes; even by the cradle of her baby she heard her father's curse. And perhaps it was well that the illness of Annunciata caused the care of the child to devolve entirely upon the mother. Another nurse could not be found, and they were obliged to give the poor baby artificial food. The care and anxiety which this caused numbed somewhat the other grievous sorrow.