"Over? It cannot be? Erika! What does this mean? Have you robbed me of all self-control only to desert me thus at the last moment? I cannot believe it of you, Erika!" There was passionate entreaty in his voice. Again he stretched out his arms towards her: gently, but firmly, she repulsed him.
"Do not touch me," she begged. "I can scarcely stand. Something horrible has happened; I must tell you of it as quickly as possible, but I cannot stand upright." She grasped the bough of the mulberry-tree around which the climbing roses were wreathed, and as she did so the bough shook, and a cloud of white rose-leaves fluttered to the ground. All about her was fading! How sultry the night was!
She sat down on the bench beneath the mulberry, above her the moonlit sky with its hosts of stars, at her feet the fading garment of the spring.
Then she began her story: "I was on my way to the station. I should have been punctual: perhaps I should have been there before you. I was convinced that I was doing right, and so long as that was so I could not delay. The way to the station leads past this house. My gondola had not yet reached the bridge that spans this canal when I heard a loud splash in the water. A woman had thrown herself from the bridge. You can imagine my horror. In an instant the suspicion darted into my mind that it might be your wife. I implored my gondolier to save her, and he plunged into the water just in time. It was indeed your wife, whom I could not but feel I had thus hunted to death. She lay in the bottom of the gondola, covered with sea-weed and slime--oh, horrible! I brought her home. We carried her up-stairs, with Lucrezia's help, and then recalled her to life. That was comparatively easy; but scarcely had she opened her eyes when she was seized with frightful spasms of the chest, and I feared she would die."
Lozoncyi had listened breathlessly; now he nodded slowly. "I know she suffers from such attacks frequently," he said, bitterly, "but they are not dangerous: they are usually the result of a fit of fury."
"That I did not know," Erika murmured, in the same weary, self-accusing voice,--the voice of a criminal arraigning herself. "Her condition made a terrible impression upon me. We put her to bed, and I stayed with her while Lucrezia went for a physician. She returned without him, but the unfortunate woman seemed better and calmer, and I was about to leave her, when I heard your step in the corridor. I came hither to take leave of you. Forgive me, and farewell!" She had risen from the bench, and held out her hand to him; her eyes were full of tears.
He did not take her hand. "And for this you would desert me?" he exclaimed, angrily. "You have given me no reason,--not the slightest. That devil up-stairs has simply played you a trick,--nothing more. Can you not see it? She knew what we were about to do, and watched for you: she had not the least idea of taking her own life."
"I do not know," replied Erika, passing her hand across her brow: "it may be that she meant only to prevent me from arriving in time at the station. But it was frightful: the canal is very deep there; she would surely have been drowned; and how could I have lived after witnessing her death? No! as I sat beside her bed a veil seemed to fall from my eyes,--a veil which had blinded me to what I was doing. I saw that, with the best will in the world, I could do only harm. I was ready to give my life for you,--I am always ready for that,--but I must not sacrifice the lives of others who stand in close relation to you and to me; I cannot!--I cannot! I ought not to have robbed you of your peace, to have taken from you the power of self-renunciation; I acknowledge it. If you could but know how bitterly I reproach myself, how fearful it is for me to see you suffer! My poor friend, I entreat your forgiveness from my very soul!" She took his hand and humbly touched it with her lips.
The night grew more sultry and oppressive. A bewildering fragrance exhaled from the earth, from the plants, from the faded blossoms on the ground, and from the fresh buds opening to life. The moonlight fell full upon the statue of a dancing faun beneath an acacia-tree, and upon the scattered rose-leaves around it.
Hitherto Lozoncyi had stood still, with bowed head. But at the touch of her lips upon his hand he looked up. His veins ran fire.