"I thought I would ask you to tell me, dearest. You are kind, but you mustn't spare her. I didn't. She wanted to draw a veil over her frailty, but I wouldn't let her. I think she would like to confess to her husband, to pour out her heart to him, and begin again with a clean page, but she is afraid. Of course she hasn't really been faithless, and I could swear on my life she loves her husband only. And then her sorrow is so great, and she is beginning to look worn with lying awake at nights, though some people still think she is beautiful. I dare say you will say, serve her right for deceiving a good man. So do I sometimes, but I feel strangely inconsistent about my poor friend, and a woman has a right to be inconsistent, hasn't she? Tell me what I am to say to her, and please don't spare her because she is a friend of mine."
She lifted her pen from the paper. "He'll understand," she thought. "He'll remember our other letters and read between the lines. Well, so much the better, and God be good to me!"
"Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! I feel like a child—as if the years had gone back with me, or rather as if they had only just begun. You have awakened my soul and all the world is different. Nearly everything that seemed right to me before seems wrong to me now, and vice versa. Life? That wasn't life. It was only existence. I fancy it must have been some elder sister of mine who went through everything. Think of it! When you were twenty and I was only ten! I'm glad there isn't as much difference now. I'm catching up to you—metaphorically, I mean. If I could only do so physically! But what nonsense I'm talking! In spite of my poor friend's trouble I can't help talking nonsense to-night."
VI
Two days later Natalina, coming into Roma's bedroom, threw open the shutters and said:
"Letter with a foreign postmark, Excellency—'Sister Angelica, care of the Porter.' It was delivered at the Convent, and the porter sent it over here."
"Give it to me," said Roma eagerly. "It's quite right. I know whom it is for, and if any more letters come for the same person bring them to me immediately."
Almost before the maid had left the room Roma had torn the letter open. It was dated from a street in Soho.
"My dear Wife,—As you see, I have reached London, and now I am thinking of you always, wondering what sufferings are being inflicted upon you for my sake and how you meet and bear them. To think of you there, in the midst of our enemies, is a spur and an inspiration. Only wait! If my absence is cruel to you it is still more hard to me. I will see your lovely eyes again before long, and there will be an end of all our sadness. Meantime continue to love me, and that will work miracles. It will make all the slings and slurs of life seem to be a long way off and of no account. Only those who love can know this law of the human heart, but how true it is and how beautiful!
"We reached London in the early morning, when the grey old city was beginning to stir after its sleepless rest. I had telegraphed the time of my arrival to the committee of our association, and early as it was some hundreds of our people were at Charing Cross to meet me. They must have been surprised to see a man step out of the train in the disguise of driver of a wine-cart on the Campagna, but perhaps that helped them to understand the position better, and they formed into procession and marched to Trafalgar Square as if they had forgotten they were in a foreign country.