She caught him wildly round the neck.
“Oh, Greville, if you suffer, if you love me I can do anything, go anywhere! Could I delay one moment if it helps you! Oh, my dear, November will not be long in coming round and I will work so hard that the minutes will fly, and all will be for my Greville. Give me a pen now, and I’ll write to Pliny and tell him I’ll go and I’ll never forget all his goodness to you. For what am I? All he does is for you and no wonder.”
She sat down and wrote eagerly—acceptance. It was done. Weeks had yet to go by, even months, for letters took long to come and go between Italy and England. But it was done and he could begin the gradual severance of all the threads of their interwoven lives.
The little house was put up for sale. Mrs. Cadogan in dire dismay at the prospect of “foreigneering” as she called it, but still faithful to Emma, was bid to prepare herself for voyaging on strange seas.
Next to the parting with Greville what most wrung Emma’s feeling was the good-bye to Romney. She could never forget his pale fixed look the day she broke it to him, with far more than her usual consideration and care.
“How long will it be?” he asked after a pause that seemed endless.
“Why, only till November, Mr. Romney, that’s all. You’ll be so busy the time will go quick. And I’ll write, indeed I will.”
“Only till November? But didn’t you say Greville joins you there? He won’t leave Italy at once. Emma, you deceive me. Tell me the truth. The truth is the best kindness.”
“When he comes out, I don’t know what he’ll choose to do, Mr. Romney. Perhaps it might be a year. But then—”
“It might be ten, twenty!” he cried, with bitter anger. “It might be my sun setting and all my life in darkness once more. You have never known what you are to me. Other men love you and covet your beautiful face, your beautiful body, and they can get no more from you than that. But you were my life and my soul—not as they understand it, but more, far more. You were not a woman; you were Beauty. You taught me my art. When you came divine things came with you that you never even guessed yourself. And now you’re going, and everything goes with you. Never in this world will you give any man what you’ve given me, for he can’t take it. Oh, my heart, my heart! I should have known it could not last. What good thing has ever lasted for me!”