Sinking into a chair, I covered my face with my hands in blank despair. My reputation as a sculptor had gone, my skill with the chisel had departed. My kind master, the great Verga, had died, and I, lonely, forsaken, and forgotten, had no means of livelihood left to me.
How long I sat plunged in grim, melancholy thoughts I know not. When I returned to consciousness, the bright moon was shining full into the room, and the broken statue looked pale and ghostly in the deep shadow.
I had risen, and was standing before the window with my head sunk on my breast, when suddenly I felt a warm arm slowly entwine itself about my neck. Starting with a cry of surprise, I turned, and found to my amazement that Santina stood beside me.
“Gasparo!” she whispered softly, drawing my head down and kissing my lips.
“Santina!” I exclaimed joyfully. “You have at last returned?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I—I told you we should meet again, and I have kept my promise.”
She was very handsomely dressed in an evening gown of pale blue, her velvet cape was edged with sable, and, unloosened, displayed around her throat a diamond necklet that shone in the bright moonbeams a narrow line of white brilliancy.
For a few moments we stood in silence, clasped in each other’s arms.
Then I commenced to question her, and she told me how she had been living far away in London, adding—
“But I have come back to you, Gasparo. You still love me, do you not?”