“I have regret,” he confessed, “for one person only, Maria.”
“For one only?”
“Always for the same person, for her of former days, for her of always—for my mother,” and a rush of tenderness and sorrow pulsated in the words.
She placed her hand on his arm quickly for a moment without speaking, to calm him.
“Still I have left. I am far away, and I don’t want to return!” he exclaimed impetuously.
“Don’t you wish to return? Don’t you wish to?” and the accent had suddenly become spasmodical.
“I don’t wish to,” he rejoined gloomily, with decision.
She shook her head sorrowfully, and looked ahead among the fleeting clouds which were rising from the still waters, as if asking the secret of the riddle from those waves of vapour which were closing in on the horizon. The prow of the Vierwaldstettersee was directed to the last station, towards a little place on the bank, where an occasional tree was still in foliage, where among woods and meadows the white houses, with their red roofs and little windows full of flowers, did not seem so deserted and dead as the others. Two children, dressed in thick woollen as a protection against the Swiss autumn, were playing outside the inn.
“Maria, Weggis,” said Marco, almost in her ear.
“Yes, Weggis,” she replied quietly.