“Do you know when he will return?”
“I do not know,” said I bitterly; “and, in fact, I begin never to expect him, and almost not to wish him to return.”
I saw a slight movement of her clasped hands like a shudder. She raised her large eyes, and, looking me in the face, said:
“Take care.”
Her look and words greatly troubled me, and I did not recover from the impression till it was time for Gilbert to arrive in the evening, when his presence made me forget it. I thought of this to-day, and perhaps the remembrance added to the repugnance I felt to go to the convent. Perhaps it also caused the unusual emotion I experienced when I found myself once more in the parlor—the very parlor that filled me with so much terror the first time I entered it, but which I afterwards forgot, so different were the impressions that followed.
But whatever the joy, the trouble, the agitation, or, as to-day, the anguish, with which I came, a few minutes sufficed to put me in harmony with the inexpressible tranquillity that reigned around me. The pulsations of my heart diminished, and I experienced the effect a pure, vivifying air produces on one who has just come from a heavy, feverish atmosphere. The bare walls, the wooden seats, the extreme simplicity and austerity on every side, inspired me with a kind of attraction that would have surprised those who daily saw me in my sumptuous home, surrounded by all that wealth and the most refined taste could procure. This attraction, incomprehensible to myself, was like that vague perfume the traveller breathes when approaching some unknown shore which he does not yet perceive....
But on this occasion these things, instead of producing their usually beneficial, soothing effect, caused me a kind of uneasiness akin to remorse, and I soon found the solitude so difficult to endure that I had some idea of profiting by the interval that remained in order to leave the convent under some pretext without seeing my sister. But the strength of mind that, thank heaven, I still possessed prevented me from leaving the place, and I became absorbed in thoughts I dared not fathom, so utterly discordant were they with everything around me, and so different from what they seemed in the light by which I regarded them only an hour before.
At last the door opened, the curtain was drawn aside, and Livia made her appearance.
“You are late, Gina,” said she. “I was afraid I should not see you to-day.”
I stammered some excuse, as she gave me a scrutinizing look with her usual expression of extreme sweetness.