Richard had gone away for good and all. She could not doubt that, after the words they had exchanged while she stood at her window the day before....
Perhaps it would be easy to win him back if she could only have him alone with her for a while. But, aware of that danger, hadn’t he told her bluntly that he would call upon her again only if her husband were present? The tone in which he had spoken, and his look at her as he spoke, had shown her clearly enough that he would be immovable on this point.
Ignorant as she could not help but be of the young man’s conversation with Canterac after the duel, she naturally attributed his change of manner to Celinda’s influence.
“She has taken him away from me,” the older woman thought. “It is she who stands in my way.... How I hate her!”
And while she pursued these reflections, she felt agitated and divided by diverse and opposing thoughts as though she were two distinct persons. The image of Watson comforted her even in these painful moments. He was young, he was the master fated to come along sometime in the life of a woman who has played coldly and cruelly with men. In all her previous life she had sought men out of ambition or vanity. But now she needed Watson; she needed him not only because he could get her out of the critical situation in which she found herself, but because he was youth and strength and resourcefulness, he was everything she lacked, everything her weary life needed. And as though that were not enough, she felt the pain of jealousy, the jealousy of an impulsive and mature woman who sees her last hope of happiness snatched away by a rival young enough to be her daughter.
And with this torment, there was all the difficulty of the tragic situation created by the rivalry she had excited between two of her admirers; and there was the urgent necessity of protecting herself against the general hostility that was likely to pursue her throughout the whole community.
“What am I to do?” she kept saying to herself. “Where shall I go?”
A knock at the drawing room door interrupted her. It was Sebastiana, who came in with a timid, undecided expression, fingering a corner of her apron, and smiling at her mistress as though looking for words in which to explain what had brought her there.
Elena gave her a little encouragement, and finally the half-breed plucked up courage enough to speak.
“I was in the employ of don Pirovani, and as he is dead now ... and for the reason that everybody knows, I must go away.”