She would slip out when she could, fearfully at first, but as discovery seemed remote, with growing confidence.
A change came over her. She found herself thinking more of Hugh as he had taught her to call him, and less of her devotions. Even at mass his image was before her, and she felt wicked, but could not alter her feelings. Longing seized her for something she only dimly comprehended; she became moody and irritable, and neglected her work. Sister Ursula was distressed, she had grown to love the girl. She misread the symptoms and thought Carlotta was pining to be free, like a caged bird. When they met the talk was all of the strange places he had seen, and she would listen all eyes and ears, drinking in every word. And so Desmond stayed on, cursing himself for the vile thing he was planning, yet persisting in his scheme. At last he came to the same spot now sacred to both, and lifted her down. Both were disturbed. The autumn was coming on, the time Carlotta dreaded, for she hated the cold and damp, and the death of the flowers.
“Daphne, my darling,” he said holding her in his arms, “I have to go away tomorrow to my own home to see to matters there. I shall be away for a week at least. When I come back I will see you again.” He spoke almost coldly, and she gave a little cry of pain, and realised perhaps for the first time what his absence would mean. She held fast to him.
“Oh, must you go?” she asked with a moan.
“I must, I have been here too long as it is, but I will come back.”
“Don’t be long, I shall miss you. It is so lonely without you.”
“Would you come with me to Italy for the winter?” he whispered, “away from all this cold and wet, into the sunlight. We can see Venice, you have never been there, and find your mother,” he added falsely.
Her body quivered in his embrace, but she stood silent. When it came to leaving the Convent and its quiet shelter, and the good Sisters, a gulf seemed to open beneath her feet.
“I could not,” she said, but the vision of all the beauties he had pictured, actually possible to her was dazzling her very soul.
“I will come for you,” he said “and you must decide for yourself. Only if you don’t come with me, I must go away altogether.”