"No, Mariano," murmured the sick woman. "She is within you; she fills your head; from here I can see her. Once a thousand mad fancies occupied her place,—illusions of your taste, naked women, a wantonness that was your religion. Now it is she who fills it. It is your desire incarnated. Go on and be happy. I am going away—there is no place for me in the world."
She was silent for a moment and the tears came to her eyes again at the memory of the first years of their life together.
"No one has cared for you as I have, Mariano," she said with tender regret. "I look on you now as a stranger, without affection and without hate. And still, there was never a woman who loved her husband so passionately."
"I worship you. Josephina, I love you just as I did when we first met each other. Do you remember?"
But in spite of the emotion he pretended to show, his voice had a false ring.
"Don't try to bluff, Mariano; it is useless; everything is over. You do not care for me nor have I either any of the old feeling."
In her face there was an expression of wonder, of surprise; she seemed terror-stricken at her own calmness that made her forgive thus indifferently the man who had caused her so much suffering. In her fancy, she saw a wide garden, flowers that seemed immortal and they were withering and falling with the advent of winter. Then her thoughts went beyond, over the chill of death. The snow was melting; the sun was shining once more; the new spring was coming with its court of love and the dry branches were growing green once more with another life.
"Who knows!" murmured the sick woman with her eyes closed. "Perhaps, after I am dead, you will remember me. Perhaps you will care for me then, and be grateful to one who loved you so. We want a thing when it is lost."
The invalid was silent, exhausted by such an effort; she relapsed into that lethargy which for her took the place of rest. Renovales, after this conversation, felt his vile inferiority beside his wife. She knew everything and forgave him. She had followed the course of his love, letter by letter, look by look, seeing in his smiles the memory of his faithlessness. And she was silent! She was dying without a protest! And he did not fall at her feet to beg her forgiveness! And he remained unmoved, without a tear, without a sigh!
He was afraid to stay alone with her. Milita came back to stay at the house to care for her mother. The master took refuge in his studio; he wanted to forget in work the body that was dying under the same roof.