She herself opened the glass door, and pushed her lover out.
“Farewell, Geraldine; good-night, my dear! Day comes, and I again greet you as my queen, and I shall have to endure again the torture of your cold looks and your haughty smiles.”
CHAPTER XIX. LOYOLA’S GENERAL.
She rushed to the window and gazed after him till he had disappeared, then she uttered a deep cry of anguish, and, wholly overcome by her agony, she sank down on her knees weeping and wailing, wringing her hands, and raising them to God.
But just before so happy and joyful, she was now full of woe and anguish; and bitter sighs of complaint came trembling from her lips.
“Oh, oh,” moaned she, with sobs; “what terrible agonies are these, and how full of despair the anguish that lacerates my breast! I have lain in his arms; I have received his vows of love and accepted his kisses; and these vows are not mine, and these kisses he gave not to me. He kissed me, and he loves in me only her whom I hate. He lays his hands in mine and utters vows of love which he dedicates to her. He thinks and feels for her only—her alone. What a terrible torture this is! To be loved under her name; under her name to receive the vows of love that yet belong to me only—to me alone! For he loves me, me exclusively. They are my lips that he kisses, my form that he embraces; to me are addressed his words and his letters; and it is I that reply to them. He loves me, me only, and yet he puts no faith in me. I am nothing to him, naught but a lifeless image, like other women. This he has told me; and I did not become frenzied; and I had the cruel energy to pass off the tears wrung from me by despair, for tears of rapture. Oh, detestable, horrible mockery of fate—to be what I am not, and not to be what I am!”
And with a shrill cry of agony she tore her hair, and with her fist smote upon her breast, and wept and moaned aloud.
She heard naught; she saw naught; she felt naught but her inexpressible and despairing anguish.
She did not once tremble for herself; she thought not at all of this—that she would be lost if she were found in this place.