To Leeward Part 39

He was astonished and puzzled by the sudden outbreak. She had never spoken like this to him before, though he had expected it at first, and had wondered at her indifference. But now it seemed to have come upon her suddenly with a great force, and she would not be comforted.

"And I say it, too," she said, pa.s.sionately. "I will be everything to you, now and forever and ever. We will give our lives to each other, and make it right." She wound her arms about him, and hid her face against his coat.

"How can true love, like ours, not be right?" asked Julius, clasping her to him. "G.o.d has put it into the world, dear, and into our hearts."

Oh, the blasphemy and the hollowness and the cruelty of those words!

Even as Leonora lay in his arms and felt his kisses on her hair, loving her sinful love for him out to the last breath, she knew that it was not true, what he said so fervently,--and she knew that he did not believe it, that no man can believe a lie so great and wide and deep and awful.

But the sun does not stand still in the heavens for a man's lie; he hears too many untrue speeches, and sees too many false faces in his daily task of shining alike upon the just and the unjust--he is used to it and goes on his way; and time follows him, striving to keep pace and to swell the puny minutes of its pulse into an eternity.

Such moments--when the rising sorrow and sense of shame that a woman feels are choked down and crushed by the overwhelming energy of falseness in the man she loves--are pa.s.sionate, even terrible; and they may come often, but they never last long.

Half an hour later, Julius and Leonora were wandering on through the woods, and their talk had taken again its ordinary course. The morning was pa.s.sing, and as Batis...o...b.. talked and amused and interested Leonora, her doubts and fears disappeared, for the time at least, and her old sense of enjoyment returned again, sweeter to her now than ever before, in proportion as it was more difficult for her to attain it. She was happy again, and the clouds were riven away and rent to shreds by the strong breath of her stirring pa.s.sion.

They walked for a while, and then returned to their midday breakfast and spent an hour over it in the cool, darkened hall, which had once been the refectory of the monastery, and was now the dining-room of the people who came to the water-cure. Julius had suggested to Leonora that they should have their breakfast and dinner in their own rooms, but she said she liked to see the people. It amused her to watch their faces and to wonder about them and criticise them. They were so unlike the people she had known hitherto, that there was a freshness of amus.e.m.e.nt to her in learning their ways.

And by and by they had their coffee in a little sitting-room of their own that overlooked the torrent, and Julius smoked a cigarette and read the papers a little, amusing her with his daring comments on the conduct of nations and individuals. He was a man who was never afraid to say what he meant--not only to Leonora, over a cup of coffee in the summer, but to the world at large, in his books and articles. That was one reason why the world at large always said he was an uncommonly fine fellow, with a great deal of pluck and judgment. For the world at large likes rough strength and keen wit, always understanding that the strong language is not applied to itself, but to its neighbour next door.

At four o'clock Julius and Leonora went out again. Julius carried a pair of shawls and a book and Leonora's silk bag with the silver rings--the same she had used to bring her handkerchiefs when she fled from Sorrento. They went into the garden and out among the laurels and the geraniums for a few minutes, but Julius was sure there would be more breeze outside, in the old summer-house over the water; for the garden was sheltered by high walls all around, and the sun was still hot, almost at its hottest at four o'clock on the fourth of September.

Accordingly Julius took the things in his hands, and the two went out of the garden by the door in the wall and left it open. They walked down the short open path to the old summer-house, and Julius made Leonora very comfortable with the shawls for cushions upon the old, wooden bench, which many generations of people had hacked with their knives and adorned with the insignificance of their unknown names.

Side by side they sat in the glory of the summer's afternoon, and the birds perched on the grey old ribs of the summer-house and hopped upon the untrimmed creepers that grew thickly about it, making their small comments to each other about the two people who sat below them, and great green and pink gra.s.shoppers skipped into the open s.p.a.ce and out again, a perpetual astonishment in their round, red eyes; all nature was warm and peaceful and happy. The lovers talked together a little, enjoying the sense that speech was not always necessary nor even desirable.

"How do you like the 'Principe'?" Julius asked at last, glancing at the book that lay open on Leonora's knee. He had given it to her to read, because she said she knew so little of Italian thought.

"I hardly know," she said. "It is very wonderful, of course. But I cannot quite believe that Machiavelli believed in it himself, nor that any one ever acted on the advice he gives. It is too complicated and unhuman."

"It always seems to me," said Julius, taking up the question, "that he wrote like a man who inferred a great deal from his own experience--a great deal more than it is safe to infer. He knew men and women very well. He might have been a despotic lover."

"Why?" asked Leonora.

"Do you notice that he always reckons, everywhere and without exception, on the heart of the people and on their personal affection for their sovereign? But he never takes into consideration the possible affection of the sovereign for his subjects."

"That is true," said Leonora. "He was a very heartless individual."

"Perhaps--though I hardly think it," answered Julius. "But he might have written a guide for despotic lovers much better than a book of instruction for tyrannical princes."

"What an idea!" said Leonora, laughing. "But I think he was heartless all the same. He only believed in the people's hearts as a means for getting power."

"He never says so," said Julius. "I rather think he loved the people, but knew them well--and he loved the ingenuities of his wit much better."

"If the heart does not come first, it never comes at all," said Leonora thoughtfully. "If it does not rule it is ruled, and might as well never exist at all. Are you tyrannical, dear?" She smiled at him, knowing how he loved her.

"Oh, yes, indeed," said Julius, laughing; "but only about love."

"But that is just the question," said Leonora. "You ought not to be.

Your heart ought to come first."

"Yes, darling," he answered. "The heart comes first, and the heart is a tyrant. Supposing my heart says to yours, 'You shall love me; I will have it at any cost;' is not that tyranny?"

"Perhaps," said Leonora, smiling and touching his hand. "But then it is quite a mutual tyranny, you know, because I say it to you, too,--and you do it."

"I always do everything you say, darling," he answered lovingly.

"Always?"

"Always;--and I always will, Leonora."

"Do you think, Julius--it is a foolish question--do you think you would die for me, if it were necessary?"

"You know I would, dear," he said quietly.

"Yes; I am sure you would," she answered. "Do you know? I used to think that one ought to be willing to die for those one loves; and I like to think that you would give your life for me. Of course it could never happen--but then--Don't laugh at me, Julius."

"Why should I laugh?" he said. "What you say is serious enough, I am sure."

"No--but I thought you might. You laugh at so many things--I am always afraid you will laugh at my love"--

It was five o'clock.

Marcantonio, issuing from the door in the garden wall, saw Julius and Leonora some twenty yards away, in the summer-house. He gave the servant a franc for showing him the way, and the man retired. He stood alone, watching the pair, for he could see them very distinctly. They were so placed that they would see him if they turned and looked upward, but they did not move, nor hear him. Leonora was nearest to him, and was leaning back a little, so that she could not see him; Batis...o...b.. held her hand, and was looking at it, and gently caressing the fair, white fingers as he talked.

Marcantonio turned away for a moment, and got out his revolver. It was clean and bright, and he had examined it,--but he would look once more, just to be sure there was a cartridge in each chamber, especially in that one beneath the barrels. One could not be too certain of one's weapon. There was no mistake,--everything was in order. The hour was come.

The hideous maniac smile played over his delicate features, and he stepped cautiously forward, holding the pistol behind him. Every step he gained before they observed him was an advantage. And besides, Leonora was between him and Batis...o...b... It was not a fair shot, and it was too far.

He did not want to kill her; he would take her home with him, when he had killed Julius Batis...o...b... He had ordered the little carriage to wait for them. How happy she would be! Cautiously he moved on, ready for action if they saw him. He trod so softly, so softly, it was like velvet on the gra.s.s.

Then, as he came nearer,--not ten paces off,--he brought his pistol before him and held it ready. So softly he had crept to them that they had not yet heard him, as the summer wind blew gently through the long gra.s.ses and the vines about the old bower, and made a sweet murmur of its own.

--"I am always afraid you will laugh at my love"--Leonora was saying, but the words that were to follow were never spoken.

Some slight sound caught her quick woman's ear, and she looked up in the direction whence it came. There stood her husband, not ten paces from her, with an expression in his face which would have frozen the marrow in the bones of a wild beast.

The clean polished barrel of the pistol was pointed full at Batis...o...b...

Leonora saw that, and saw that Marcantonio's eyes were fixed on her lover and not on herself. Batis...o...b.. saw it all as well as she, one second later. But that one second was enough.

With a spring and a clutching turn, as a tigress will cover her young with herself and turn glaring on her pursuers, Leonora threw her strong, lithe body upon Julius, forcing him back to his seat, and she turned and looked Marcantonio in the face. Their eyes met for one moment. But it was too late: the finger had pulled the trigger and the ball sped true.

Without a sound, without a cry, she fell upon her lover's breast. There she fell, there she died.

From the death wound the heart's blood fell in great drops; it fell down to the ground.

She died for his sake whom she loved; she died, she gave for him her life, the joy and the woe and the love of it for his sake.

Do you ask what is the moral of this? Ask it of yourselves.