“Ah! well, Jane, we must not be selfish. He has his life to live, as you have yours; and I must expect one day to lose you both.”
I felt my heart stop, and then beat violently. What did Mary mean? And why did some veil seem suddenly to fall from my eyes? It was some moments before 1 spoke; and then I tried to say in my ordinary voice: “You have some presentiment about Frank, Mary. What is it?”
“I have presentiments about both of you. But I do not want to force your confidence.”
In a moment I was kneeling by her side. “Dearest Mary, do you suppose I have any secrets from you? I tell you everything. If I do not tell you more, it is because I know no more.” It was a sudden impulse, dim but overwhelming, which made me add those strange words. Mary looked at me intently. “Has it never struck you that Frank has a reason for going so often to the Villa Casinelli, as Emidio has a reason for coming so often here?”
Our eyes met for one moment. Then I hid my face in my hands, and burst into tears.
“O Mary! what bitter-sweet things are you saying? I do not want to lose Frank, and I do not want to leave you, or to tread in other paths than those I have known since my childhood. Are you sure it is so? Why have I not known it till now? And even now I doubt.”
“That is because you were not in the least looking out for it, and were absorbed in other thoughts, preventing that retrospection which would have shown you that Emidio's manner towards you has been intensifying with every day of our stay here. And now what answer will you give when the time comes?”
“Do not ask me yet, dear Mary. I must have leisure to reflect. At this moment my heart is more full of Frank and Elizabeth than of anything else.”
“Ah! my dear, he could not have made a wiser choice; she is a girl after my own heart, so true, so tender, so good, and so utterly unselfish.”
“I only hope she will not spoil Frank.”