'For ever.'
'Would nothing influence you—neither our prayers, nor your love for me, nor my mother's name—would nothing induce you to consent?'
'Nothing.'
'He says "No," love,' she whispered, turning, looking around her with a wandering eye. But Antonio Amati was too mortally wounded to feel compassion for another's suffering. Now one single wish possessed him, that of all strong minds, to lock up the great catastrophe of his life, scorning barren sympathy, and fly to solitude. He needed darkness, silence, a place to hide, to weep in, to cry out in his sorrow. The girl before him was the image of desolation, but he saw nothing, felt nothing: compassion had gone out of his heart; he felt all the unforgiving selfishness of great suffering. 'My love, love!' she still repeated, trying to give expression to the anguish of her passion.
Do not say that, Bianca Maria,' he said, with the bitter grin of the disappointed man; 'it is no use—I do not ask you for it. We have spoken too much. I must go.'
'Stay another minute,' she said, as if it meant putting off death for a little while.
'No, no—at once. Good-bye, Bianca Maria.' He bowed low to the Marquis.
The cruel, impassible old man, whom nothing would move, for his eyes saw nothing but his mad vision, returned his bow. When the doctor passed in front of the girl to leave the room she held out her hand humbly, but he did not take it. She made a resigned gesture, and looked at him with as much passion as an exile for ever banished from his country can express. It was no time for words or greeting; divided by violence, they were leaving each other for ever; words and greetings were of no use now. He went away, followed by Bianca Maria's magnetic gaze, without turning back, going away alone to his bitter destiny. She listened longingly for the last sound of the beloved foot-step, that she would never hear again. She heard the entrance door shut quietly, like a secret prison door. All was ended, then! Her father sat down in a big chair, thoughtful but easy, leaning his forehead on his hand. Quietly she came to kneel by him, and, bending her head, said:
'Bless me.'