“How should I know?  Perhaps time will show.”

“Time is too slow for me.  There must be some other way.”

“Find it then,” said Maria Consuelo, smiling rather sadly.

“I will.”

He meant what he said, but the difficulty of the problem perplexed him and there was not enough conviction in his voice.  He was thinking rather of the matter itself than of what he said.  Maria Consuelo fanned herself slowly and stared at the wall.

“If you doubt so much,” said Orsino at last, “I have the right to doubt a little too.  If you loved me well enough you would promise to marry me.  You do not.”

There was a short pause.  At last Maria Consuelo closed her fan, looked at it and spoke.

“You say my reason is not good.  Must I go all over it again?  It seems a good one to me.  Is it incredible to you that a woman should love twice?  Such things have happened before.  Is it incredible to you that, loving one person, a woman should respect the memory of another and a solemn promise given to that other?  I should respect myself less if I did not.  That it is all my fault I will admit, if you like—­that I should never have received you as I did—­I grant it all—­that I was weak yesterday, that I am weak to-day, that I should be weak to-morrow if I let this go on.  I am sorry.  You can take a little of the blame if you are generous enough, or vain enough.  You have tried hard to make me love you and you have succeeded, for I love you very much.  So much the worse for me.  It must end now.”

“You do not think of me, when you say that.”

“Perhaps I think more of you than you know—­or will understand.  I am older than you—­do not interrupt me!  I am older, for a woman is always older than a man in some things.  I know what will happen, what will certainly happen in time if we do not part.  You will grow jealous of a shadow and I shall never be able to tell you that this same shadow is not dear to me.  You will come to hate what I have loved and love still, though it does not prevent me from loving you too—­”

“But less well,” said Orsino rather harshly.

“You would believe that, at least, and the thought would always be between us.”

“If you loved me as much, you would not hesitate.  You would marry me living, as you married him dead.”

“If there were no other reason against it—­” She stopped.

“There is no other reason,” said Orsino insisting.

Maria Consuelo shook her head but said nothing and a long silence followed.  Orsino sat still, watching her and wondering what was passing in her mind.  It seemed to him, and perhaps rightly, that if she were really in earnest and loved him with all her heart, the reasons she gave for a separation were far from sufficient.  He had not even much faith in her present obstinacy and he did not believe that she would really go away.  It was incredible that any woman could be so capricious as she chose to be.