“True, but do you think that he will dare to tell the world what he knows? He might be asked to say how he comes by his knowledge, and that should prove a difficult question to answer. Tell me, Lazzaro,” she continued, “if he had succeeded in carrying me away, what think you would have been said in Pesaro to-morrow when the coffin was found empty?”
“They would assume that your body had been stolen by some wizard or some daring student of anatomy.”
“Ah! And if we were quietly to quit the church and be clear of Pesaro before morning, would not the same be said?”
“Probably,” answered I.
“Then why hesitate? Is it that you do not love me enough, Lazzaro?”
I smiled, and my eyes must have told her more than any protestation could. Then I sighed. “I hesitate, Madonna, because I would not have you do now what you might come, hereafter, bitterly to repent. I would not let you be misled by the impulse of a moment into an act whose consequences must endure as long as life itself.”
“Is that the reasoning of a lover?” she asked me, very quietly. “Is this cold argument, this weighing of issues, consistent with the stormy passion you professed so lately?”
“It is,” I answered stoutly. “It is because I love you more than I love myself that I would have you reflect ere you adventure your life upon such a broken raft as mine. You are Paola Sforza di Santafior, and I—”
“Enough of that,” she interrupted me, rising. She swept towards me, and before I knew it her hands were on my shoulders, her face upturned, and her blue eyes on mine, depriving me of all will and all resistance.
“Lazzaro,” said she, and there was an intensity almost fierce in her low tones, “moments are flying and you stand here reasoning with me, and bidding me weigh what is already weighed for all time. Will you wait until escape is rendered impossible, until we are discovered, before you will decide to save me, and to grasp with both hands this happiness of ours that is not twice offered in a lifetime?”