faint from within; and the appalled Nostromo
stood up, too, but remained mute, gazing at the door. He was afraid. He
was not afraid of being refused the girl he loved--no mere refusal could
stand between him and a woman he desired--but the shining spectre of
the treasure rose before him, claiming his allegiance in a silence that
could not be gainsaid. He was afraid, because, neither dead nor
alive, like the Gringos on Azuera, he belonged body and soul to the
unlawfulness of his audacity. He was afraid of being forbidden the
island. He was afraid, and said nothing.

Seeing the two men standing up side by side to await her, Linda stopped
in the doorway. Nothing could alter the passionate dead whiteness of her
face; but her black eyes seemed to catch and concentrate all the light
of the low sun in a flaming spark within the black depths, covered at
once by the slow descent of heavy eyelids.

"Behold thy husband, master, and benefactor." Old Viola's voice
resounded with a force that seemed to fill the whole gulf.

She stepped forward with her eyes nearly closed, like a sleep-walker in
a beatific dream.

Nostromo made a superhuman effort. "It is time, Linda, we two were
betrothed," he said, steadily, in his level, careless, unbending tone.

She put her hand into his offered palm, lowering her head, dark with
bronze glints, upon which her father's hand rested for a moment.

"And so the soul of the dead is satisfied."

This came from Giorgio Viola, who went on talking for a while of his
dead wife; while the two, sitting side by side, never looked at each
other. Then the old man ceased; and Linda, motionless, began to speak.

"Ever since I felt I lived in the world, I have lived for you alone,
Gian' Battista. And that you knew! You knew it . . . Battistino."

She pronounced the name exactly with her mother's intonation. A gloom as
of the grave covered Nostromo's heart.

"Yes. I knew," he said.

The heroic Garibaldino sat on the same bench bowing his hoary head, his
old soul dwelling alone with its memories, tender and violent, terrible
and dreary--solitary on the earth full of men.

And Linda, his best-loved daughter, was saying, "I was yours ever since
I can remember. I had only to think of you for the earth to become empty
to my eyes. When you were there, I could see no one else. I was yours.
Nothing is changed. The world belongs to you, and you let me live in
it." . . . She dropped her low, vibrating voice to a