“Ill? No, I am not ill. I am as I always am.”
“Not as you used to be,” said Diana, kindly; and then she added in haste, “but it is so long since I have seen you, that you may well have changed in the meantime. And I have never had the opportunity of congratulating—of wishing you—happiness.”
He looked at her for a moment with all his heart in his haggard face; then, turning suddenly away with an imploring gesture, hid his face in his hands.
What was she to do or say? There was no contesting now what she could read as in a book—the despair that had kept him out of her presence, that made him incapable either of meeting her eye or deceiving her now. He had no wish to deceive her,—if, indeed, there was one thing more than another for which his forlorn heart had longed, it was that she should know.
“Forgive me,” he said, in a broken voice, “I can have no disguises from you.”
Diana was too much discomposed to know what to say. Such a tacit confidence seemed wrong, almost a treachery to poor little innocent Sophy, who had no conception of this secret, and could not have understood it had she known. She said gently, “You must let me wish you well at least. I do that from the bottom of my heart.”
He looked at her with piteous eyes, doubly dark with a moisture which the powerful mechanism of pain had forced into them, but which was too bitter and concentrated to fall and relieve the brain from which it was wrung. “Think of me sometimes,” he said. “You know how it is with me. You, who are kind to all, sometimes think of me a little. That will help me to bear. I will do—my duty.”
“Oh, Mr. Pandolfini!” cried Diana, the tears rising warm and sudden into her eyes. “Let me give you some comfort if I can.” The moment was too bitter, the encounter too real, as of two souls in the wilderness, to warrant any pretence on either side that they did not understand each other. “Once the same thing happened to me. I have gone through the same. There was one whom I cared for, but who made me no return. I do not hesitate to tell you. For a time it seemed worse than death: but now it is past, and I am no longer unhappy. So will it be with you.”
“Ah, my God, my God!” he cried, with sudden passion, “can such things be? You!—was he mad or blind?” Then a smile came over his haggard face, which was more pathetic than the previous look of misery. “This is to comfort me,” he said. “Yes, it is just; it was more pitiful for such a one than for me.”
“I meant—it will pass away—and all will be well,” cried Diana, trembling. “Oh, believe me. I speak who know. It will be so with you.”