ternoon at
Craford; and I walked beside you on the cliffs, and heard your voice,
and rejoiced in the sense of your nearness to me, and in your adorable
beauty, as you breasted the wind, with the sea and the sky for a
background. (Do you remember? Do you remember how keen and sweet the
air was, with the scent of the wild thyme? and how the sand-martins
circled round us?) As we passed through the long, bare, imposing rooms,
something like a shadow of you seemed to flit before us. Or if I
glanced out of one of the tall windows, it seemed as if you had just
passed under them, along the Riva or across the Piazza. As for Isola
Nobile, if I regret that it is n't mine, that is chiefly because I
should be glad to be in a position to offer so very lordly and lovely a
pleasure-house to _you_."

Susanna laughed.

Towards the end he wrote:--

"I look at the sea and I realize that it is continuous from here to
England, from here to Rowland Marshes; and it seems somehow to connect
us, to keep us in touch. Perhaps you, too, are looking at it at this
same moment. I fancy you walking on your terrace, and looking off upon
the grey-blue sea. It seems somehow to connect us. But there is no
grey in the blue of the sea here--it is blue, blue, unmitigated, almost
dazzling blue, save where in the sun it turns to quite dazzling white,
or in the deeper shadows takes on tints that are almost crimson, tints
of _lie-de-vin_. Oh, why are n't you here? If you were here, I think
a veil would fall from before my eyes, and I should see everything
differently. I could imagine myself _loving_ Sampaolo--if you were
here. In nine days--nine days! And to-morrow it will be only eight
days, and the day after to-morrow only seven. _Only_ do I say? I
count in that fashion to keep my courage up. Nine days! Why can't
those nine eternities be annihilated from the calendar? Why does n't
some kind person kill me, and then call me back to life in nine days?
Oh, it was cruel of you, cruel, cruel."

Susanna looked out of her window, across the dark bay, to where the
electric lamps along the Riva threw wavering fronds of light upon the
water. She kissed her hand, and wafted the kiss (as nearly as the
darkness would let her guess) in the direction of the Piazza San Guido.
Then she went into the library, and hunted for a volume of Ronsard.

XXII

There are two men, as they that know Sampaolo will not need to be
reminded, two young men, who,