She knew her father’s brave, unflinching nobility of character. Rather than he would allow her to marry a man whom she hated and mistrusted, he would face ruin—even death.
And for that reason she, pale and silent, gazing into the rising mists, accepted the man who had made her father’s honour the price of her own life.
“Tell the count,” she said, in a voice broken by emotion, “tell him that I am ready to be his wife.”
And her father, gladdened at what he, in his ignorance, believed to be a wise decision, bent to her and pressed his lips to her cheek with fatherly affection, in a vain endeavour to kiss her tears away.
They were not tears of emotion, but of a sweet and tender woman’s blank despair.
Chapter Twenty.
Tells the Truth.
On the following afternoon, in consequence of a telegram, the Minister of War drove into Florence, and met Vito Ricci at the club.