From her own point of view the Marchesa Loredan had been very kind. Her visit would put a stop to any serious gossip about her son and Tacita; and she had shown a gracious regard and respect for the dead savant and his family.
She had a very comfortable sense of having done her duty, and been prudent in her own affairs at the same time. That both Tacita and her grandfather would have regarded such gossip with loathing and contempt, and that they set no very high value on her approval, she did not dream.
“Don Claudio should have been the one to tell me this,” Tacita thought.
The books were carried down, the laborious visit came to an end, the orphan was alone again, her sweet, sad hope crushed like a fragile flower.
“Elena, take me away from here!” she exclaimed. “No one has any heart. Take me away!”
“Don’t cry, dear! We will go in the morning,” her friend said soothingly. “Don Claudio will come to take leave of you at the station. He found a chance to tell me so. He said that he could not get away alone this morning.”
“She is cruel, and he is weak,” said Tacita. “I like not a weak man.”
Elena shook her head. “Ah! my dear, a man is usually weak before a strong-willed woman who loves herself better than she does him.”
Don Claudio was, in fact, waiting at the station when they arrived there the next morning.
“I could not let you go without a word,” he said in an agitated murmur. “I shall always remember, and regret. Oh! the sweet old days! Tacita, do not you see that my heart is breaking?”