The White Sister Part 23

As soon as Giovanni heard the door shut he made one step forward and stretched out both his hands, thinking to take hers. She made no movement, but raised her eyes, and when he saw them, they were still and dull. Then she slowly held out her right hand, and it was cold and inert when he took it. She drew back at once and sat down, and he took the other chair, bringing it a little nearer, and turning it so that he could see her. He was cruelly disappointed, but he was the first to speak.

'I thought you were glad to know that I am alive,' he said coldly, 'but I see that you were only frightened, the other day. I am sorry to have startled you.'

She steadied herself before answering.

'Yes, I was startled. Your letter did not reach me till afterwards.'

The garden was whirling before her as if she were being put under ether, and the little twisted columns that upheld the arches of the cloister chased each other furiously, till she thought she was going to fall from her chair. She could not hear what he said next, for a surging roar filled her ears as when the surf breaks at an angle on a long beach and sounds one deep, uninterrupted note. He was explaining why the mail steamer had not reached Italy several days before him, but she did not understand; she only knew when he ceased speaking.

'It is the inevitable--always the inevitable,' she said, making a desperate effort and yet not saying anything she wished to say.

But her tone told him how deeply she was moved, and his fiery energy broke out.

'Nothing is inevitable!' he cried. 'There is nothing that cannot be undone, if I can live to undo it!'

That was not what she expected, if she expected anything, but it brought back her controlling self that had been dazed and wandering and had left her almost helpless. She started and turned her face full to his, but drawing back in her chair.

'What do you mean?' she asked.

'Angela!'

The appeal of love was in his voice, as he bent far forward, but she raised her hand in warning.

'No, "Sister Giovanna," please,' she said, checking him, though gently.

He felt the slight rebuke, and remembered that the place was public to the community.

'It was not by chance that you took my name with the veil,' he said, almost in a whisper. 'Did you love me then?'

'I believed that you had been dead two years,' answered the nun slowly.

'But did you love me still, when I was dead?'

'Yes.'

She did not lower her voice, for she was not ashamed, but she looked down. He forgot her rebuke, and called her by her old name again, that had meant life and hope and everything to him through years of captivity.

'Angela!' He did not heed her gesture now, nor the quick word she spoke. 'Yes, I will call you Angela--you love me now----'

She checked him again, with more energy.

'Hush! If you cannot be reasonable, I shall go away!'

'Reasonable!'

There was contempt in his tone, but he sat upright again and said no more.

'Listen to me,' said Sister Giovanna, finding some strength in the small advantage she had just gained. 'I have not let you come here in order to torment you or cheat you, and I mean to tell you the truth.

You have a right to know it, and I still have the right to tell it, because there is nothing in it of which I am ashamed. Will you hear me quietly, whatever I say?'

'Yes, I will. But I cannot promise not to answer, when you have done.'

'There is no answer to what I am going to say. It is to be final.'

'We shall see,' said Giovanni gravely, though with no conviction.

But the nun was satisfied, for he was clearly willing to listen. The meeting had disturbed her peace even more than she had expected, but she had done her best during several days to prepare herself for it, and had found strength to decide what she must say, and to repeat it over and over again till she knew it by heart.

'You were reported to be dead,' she began--'killed with the rest of them. You had your share in the great military funeral, and I, and all the world, believed that you were buried with your comrades. Your name is engraved with theirs upon their tomb, in the roll of honour, as that of a man who perished in his country's service. I went there with Madame Bernard before I began my noviciate, and I went again, for the last time, before I took the veil. I had loved you living and I loved you dead.'

Giovanni moved as if he were going to speak, but she would not let him.

'No, hear me!' she cried anxiously. 'I offered G.o.d my life and my strength for your sake, and if I have done any good here in five years, as novice and nun, it has been in the hope that it might be accepted for you, if your soul needed it. Though you may not believe in such things, do you at least understand me?'

'Indeed I do, and I am grateful--most grateful.'

She was a little disappointed by his tone, for he spoke with an evident effort.

'It was gladly given,' she said. 'But now you have come back to life----'

She hesitated. With all her courage and strength, she could not quite control her memory, and the words she had prepared so carefully were suddenly confused. Giovanni completed the sentence for her in his own way.

'I have come to life to find you dead for me, as I have been dead for you. Is that what you were going to say?'

She was still hesitating.

'Was it that?' he insisted.

'No,' she answered, at last. 'Not dead for you--alive for you.'

He would have caught at a straw, and the joy came into his face as he quickly held out his hand to her; but she would not take it: hers were both hidden under her white cloth scapular and she shrank from him.

The light went out of his eyes.

'I might have known!' he said, deeply disappointed. 'You do not mean it. I suppose you will explain that you are alive to pray for me!'

'You promised to listen quietly, whatever I might say.'

'Yes.' He controlled himself. 'I will,' he added, after a moment. 'Go on.'

'I am not changed,' said Sister Giovanna, 'but my life is. That is what I meant by the inevitable. No person can undo what I have done'--Giovanni moved impatiently--'no power can loose me from my vows.'

In spite of himself, the man's temper broke out.

'You are mad,' he answered roughly, 'or else you do not know that you can be free.'

'Hush!' cried the nun, trying once more to check him. 'Your promise--remember it!'

'I break it! I will not listen meekly to such folly! Before you took the vow, you had given me your word, as I gave you mine, that we would be man and wife, and since I am not dead, no promise or oath made after that is binding! I know that you love me still, as you did then, and if you will not try to free yourself, then by all you believe, and by all I honour, I will set you free!'