across her face. She has forgotten all in
the rapture of his presence. Yes!--that voice! Had it not been raised
but a few hours before at the altar to repudiate her? How can she
believe in him? How surrender herself to the glamour of his words?
Remembering all this, despair comes over her. Again Enrica shrinks
from him. She bursts into tears and hides her face with her hands.

Enrica's distrust of him, her silence, her tears, cut Nobili to the
soul. He knows he deserves it. Ah!--with her there before him, how
he curses himself for ever having doubted her! Every justification
suddenly leaves him. He is utterly confounded. The gossip of the
club--Count Marescotti and his miserable verses--the marchesa
herself--what are they all beside the purity of those saint-like eyes?
Nera, too--false, fickle, sensual Nera--a mere thing of flesh and
blood--he had left her for Nera! Was he mad?

At that moment, of all living men, Count Nobili seemed to himself the
most unworthy! He must go--he did not deserve to stay!

"Enrica--before I leave you, speak to me one word of forgiveness--I
implore you!"

As he speaks their eyes meet. Yes, she is his own Enrica--unchanged,
unsullied!--the idol is intact within its shrine--the sanctuary is as
he had left it! No rude touch had soiled that atmosphere of purity and
freshness that floated like an aureole around her!

How could he leave her?--if they must part, he would hear his fate
from her own lips. Enrica is leaning against the wall speechless, her
face shaded by her hand. Big tears are trickling through her fingers.
Unable to support herself she clings to a chair, then seats herself.
And Nobili, pale with passion stands by, and dares not so much as to
touch her--dares not touch her, although she is his wife!

In the fury of his self-reproach, he digs his hands into the masses of
thick chestnut curls that lie disordered about his head.

Fool, idiot!--had he lost her? A terrible misgiving overcomes him? It
fills him with horror. Was it too late? Would she never forgive him?
Nobili's troubled eyes, that wander all over her, ask the question.

"Speak to me--speak to me!" he cries. "Curse me--but speak to me!"

At this appeal Enrica turns her tear-bedewed face toward him.

"Nobili," she says at last, very low, "would you have gone without
seeing me?"

Nobili dares not lie to her. He makes no reply.

"Oh, do not deceive me, Nobili!" and Enrica wrings her hands and looks
piteously into