And she uttered her “no” in the same tone as others would whisper their “yes.” “See how I sacrifice everything for you,” she seemed to say, “my best years, my womanhood, my beauty, I sacrifice all for you, darling Percy.” Even to herself she made a sacrifice of her half-heartedness and her fear—though she probably suspected in her inmost heart this unsatisfied longing of Percy’s was in the long run more dangerous to him than ordinary life together as husband and wife. The truth was that Hedvig Hill sipped at what she did not dare to drink at one draft. She hugged to herself the glimpse of pain she saw in Percy’s glance after her refusal. She cherished the mist of pulsing blood in his blue eyes, so like those of a precocious boy. And she warmed her lonely bed with it.
Then one day came when Percy was—not cured, because a complete cure seemed almost out of question—but anyhow, so much better that he could think of moving about in the world once again.
The doctors spoke of the south.
Hedvig felt a nervous dread of all that was to come. It was as if they were being turned out of a safe refuge, she thought. She would have preferred to remain amongst the brotherhood of the doomed, bewitched by the mountain spirits up there into a half-life in the big white monastery.
“But Percy, would it not be safer to spend one more winter in the sanatorium?” she whispered.
Percy shook his head and smiled. He had been very mysterious these last days; he had sent off and received a number of telegrams.
“Where are we going? Wouldn’t it be best to go home?” wondered Hedvig.
“You are going to have a magnificent present,” cried Percy, who glowed with the pleasure of planning, acting and moving about after years of supervision and inactivity.
So they went down into the valley when the first September days had already sprayed the woods with gold. There the train stood ready. The smoke, the noise, the jolting about soon tired Percy, who was so spoilt with fresh air and quiet. Then Hedvig turned nurse again, and wrapped him up in their reserved compartment. But that evening the train rushed into a town by the sea under the mountains. It was Genoa and they at once went aboard a steamer which seemed to have waited only for them in order to depart.
“But where is this boat going to? Where are we going?” wondered Hedvig.