Gradually, as Enrica’s mind became clearer, lying there so still with no sound but Pipa’s measured breathing, she felt to its full extent how Nobili had wronged her.  Why had he not come himself and asked her if all this were true?  To leave her thus forever!  Without even asking her—­oh, how cruel!  She believed in him, why did he not believe in her?  No one had ever yet told her a lie; within herself she felt no power of deceit.  She could not understand it in others, nor the falseness of the world.  Now she must learn it!  Then a great longing and tenderness came over her.  She loved Nobili still.  Even though he had smitten her so sorely, she loved him—­she loved him, and she forgave him!  But stronger and stronger grew the thought, even while these longings swept over her like great waves, that Nobili was unworthy of her.  Should she love him less for that?  Oh, no!  He was unworthy of her—­yet she yearned after him.  He had left her—­but in her heart Nobili should forever sit enthroned—­and she would worship him!

And they had been so happy, so more than happy—­from the first moment they had met—­and he had shattered it!  Oh, his love for her was dead and buried out of sight!  What was life to her without Nobili?  Oh, those forebodings that had clung about her from the very moment he had left Corellia!  Now she could understand them.  Never to see him again!—­was it possible?  A great pity came upon her for herself.  No one, she was sure, could ever have suffered like her—­no one—­no one.  This thought for some time pursued her closely.  There was a terrible comfort in it.  Alas! all her life would be suffering now!

As Enrica lay there, her face turned toward the wall, and her eyes closed (Pipa watching her, thinking she had dozed), suddenly her bosom heaved.  She gave a wild cry.  The pent-up tears came pouring down her cheeks, and sob after sob shook her from head to foot.

This burst of grief saved her—­Fra Pacifico said so when he came down later.  “Death had passed very near her,” he said, “but now she would recover.”

CHAPTER IV.

FRA PACIFICO AND THE MARCHESA.

On the evening of that day the marchesa was in her own room, opening from the sala.  The little furniture the room contained was collected around the marchesa, forming a species of oasis on the broad desert of the scagliola floor.  A brass lamp, placed on a table, formed the centre of this habitable spot.  The marchesa sat in deep shadow, but in the outline of her tall, slight figure, and in the carriage of her head and neck, there was the same indomitable pride, courage, and energy, as before.  A paper lay on the ground near her; it was Nobili’s letter.  Fra Pacifico sat opposite to her.  He was speaking.  His deep-set luminous eyes were fixed on the marchesa.  His straight, coarse hair was pushed up erect upon his brow; there was at all times something of a mane about it.  His cassock sat loosely about his big, well-made limbs; his priestly stock was loosed, showing the dark skin of his throat and chin.  In the turn of his eye, in the expression of his countenance, there were anxiety, restlessness, and distrust.