There was nothing more to be said. Their story was finished, and the remaining few weeks were but a study of what all travellers study in Rome.
“I am laying up riches for my life,” Mr. Vane said to the Signora. “I have learned of you to work, and I hope that the last of my life will be more useful than the first has been. These memories that I am preparing now will be the only recreation of my future and my only dream.”
He did not trouble her with sadness or importunities, but took his life up with manly cheerfulness, and she honored him for it and liked him better than ever. But never for an instant did she waver in her decision. Her mind, once cleared, was cleared for ever. She would not have married him, nor any other man, to have possessed the world.
One bright October day they left her. There was sadness and tears, but no heart-break for any one. Marion’s tender sympathy threw a rainbow on Bianca’s gentle sorrow, and Isabel clung to her father’s arm and dropped her head on his shoulder, soothing and soothed.
“I shall never leave you, papa,” she whispered.
Did she suspect what he had missed?
The Signora watched the train roll away, then went back to her silent house, wiping her eyes as she entered.
“What a pity it is that you will have to be alone now!” said Annunciata.
“Alone!” the Signora’s eyes flashed out through the tears. “I am not alone. I never was alone in my life!”
She smiled as she shut herself into her room. “Alone? How little they know!”