Mrs. Rutherford had called her cruel, but was not the cruelty far greater that submitted her to that heart-rending ordeal?
To sit brooding thus, with her arms upon the cold marble, had been so much a habit with her of late, that in these melancholy reveries she had often lost count of time, till the sound of some convent bell startled her as it told the lateness of the hour, or till the creeping cold of sundown awoke her with a shiver. In that city of the Church there were many bells—all with their particular call to prayer, and she could have told the progress of the day and night without the help of a clock. Now it was the bell of the Trinità del Monte, for the office of Benediction, distant and silvery sweet in the clear air. It was a warning to go back to the house—yet she did not stir. Solitude here, with the cold wind blowing upon her, and the twitter of birds among the branches, was better than the atmosphere of those silent rooms.
She raised her head at the sound of a footstep, not the leisurely tread of one of the gardeners, heavy and slow. This step was light and rapid, so rapid that before she had time to wonder, it had stopped close beside her, and two strong arms were holding her, and quick, sobbing breath was fluttering her hair.
"Don't be frightened! Vera, my angel, my beloved!"
She tried to release herself, tried to stand upright, but the passionate arms held her to the passionate heart.
"Claude, are you mad?"
"No. Madness is over. Sanity has come back. I am yours again, my beloved, yours as I was that night—before a great horror parted us. I am all your own—your lover—your husband, whatever you will. The miserable slave you saw in the monastery is dead. I am yours, and only yours. I have no separate existence. I want no other heaven! Heaven is here, in your arms. Nothing else matters."
"My God! Have you left the monastery!"
"For ever. I bore it till last night—but that was a night of hell. I told the Superior this morning that I was not of the stuff that makes a martyr or a monk. He was horrified. To him I seemed a son of the devil. Well, I will worship Satan sooner than lose you. I am your lover, Vera—nothing else in this sublunary world. 'We'll jump the life to come.'"