“Why do you then curse that moment, those words and that sentiment?”
“Because you still love Marco Fiore.”
“No,” she replied.
“You keep his letters.”
“That is true; but I don’t love him. His letters are sacred, like those of one dead, like those of one dear to me.”
“You love him; you love him!” exclaimed Emilio, in a monotony of desperation; “you keep every gift of his.”
“I don’t love him; but what I have is dear to me as a funereal memory.”
“You love him, and he loves you. The house at Santa Maria Maggiore has remained as it was. It belongs to him and you.”
“But I have never been there again,” she replied disdainfully.
“I know, I know. I know where you go. But you will go there to-morrow perhaps, and he will come to-morrow. Oh, this evening, if I had never seen this evening!”