Whosoever Shall Offend Part 48

"He did not go to bed last night," Kalmon explained, going on.

"Oh!" Again the Professor was struck by the young girl's tone.

They reached the third landing, and Kalmon pushed the door, which he had left ajar; he shut it when they had all entered, and he ushered the mother and daughter into the small sitting-room. There they waited a moment while he went to tell Regina that Aurora had come.

The young girl dropped her cloak upon a chair and stood waiting, her eyes fixed on the door. She was a little pale, not knowing what was to come, yet feeling somehow that it was to make a great difference to her ever afterwards. She glanced at her mother, and the Contessa smiled gently, as much as to say that she was doing right, but neither spoke.

Presently Kalmon came out with the Sister of Charity, who bent her head gravely to the two ladies.

"She wishes to see you alone," Kalmon said, in explanation, while he held the door open for Aurora to pa.s.s in.

He closed it after her, and the two were together.

When Aurora entered, Regina's eyes were fixed upon her face as if they had already found her and seen her while she had been in the other room.

She came straight to the bedside and took the hand that was stretched out to meet hers. It was thin and hot now, and the arm was already wasted. Aurora remembered how strongly it had lifted her to the edge of the rock, far away by Pontresina.

"You are very kind, Signorina," said the faint voice. "You see how I am."

Aurora saw indeed, and kept the hand in hers as she sat down in the chair that stood where Marcello had left it.

"I am very, very sorry," she said, leaning forward a little and looking into the worn face, colourless now that the fever had subsided for a while.

The same bright smile that Kalmon had seen lighted up Regina's features.

"But I am glad!" she answered. "They do not understand that I am glad."

"No, no!" cried Aurora softly. "Don't say you are glad!"

The smile faded, and a very earnest look came into the hollow dark eyes.

"But I have not done it on purpose," Regina said. "I did not know there was fever in that place, or I would not have sat down there. You believe me, Signorina, don't you?"

"Yes, indeed!"

The smile returned very gradually, and the anxious pressure of the hand relaxed.

"You must not think that I was looking for the fever. But since it came, and I am going from here, I am glad. I shall not be in the way any more.

That hindrance will be taken out of his life."

"He would not like to hear you speak like this," Aurora said, with great gentleness.

"There is no time for anything except the truth, now. And you are good, so good! No, there is no time. To-morrow, I shall be gone. Signorina, if I could kneel at your feet, I would kneel. But you see how I am. You must think I am kneeling at your feet."

"But why?" asked Aurora, with a little distress.

"To ask you to forgive me for being a hindrance. I want pardon before I go. But I found him half dead on the door-step. What could I do? When I had seen him, I loved him. I knew that he thought of you. That was all he remembered--just your name, and I hated it, because he had forgotten all other names, even his own, and his mother, and everything. He was like a little child that learns, to-day this, to-morrow that, one thing at a time. What could I do? I taught him. I also taught him to love Regina. But when the memory came back, I knew how it had been before."

Her voice broke and she coughed, and raised one hand to her chest.

Aurora supported her tenderly until it was over, and when the weary head sank back at last it lay upon the young girl's willing arm.

"You are tiring yourself," Aurora said. "If it was to ask my forgiveness that you wished me to come, I forgave you long ago, if there was anything to forgive. I forgave you when we met, and I saw what you were, and that you loved him for himself, just as I do."

"Is it true? Really true?"

"So may G.o.d help me, it is quite true. But if I had thought it was not for himself--"

"Oh, yes, it was," Regina answered. "It was, and it is, to the end. Will you see? I will show you. For what the eyes see the heart believes more easily. Signorina, will you bring the little box covered with old velvet? It is there, on the table, and it is open."

Aurora rose, humouring her, and brought the thing she asked for, and sat down again, setting it on the edge of the bed. Regina turned her head to see it, and raised the lid with one hand.

"This is my little box," she said. "What he has given me is all in it. I have no other. Will you see? Here is what I have taken from him. You shall look everywhere, if you do not believe."

"But I do believe you!" Aurora cried, feeling that tears were coming to her eyes.

"But you must see," Regina insisted. "Or perhaps when I am gone you will say to yourself, 'There may have been diamonds and pearls in the little box, after all!' You shall know that it was all for himself."

To please her Aurora took up some of the simple trinkets, simpler and cheaper even than what she had herself.

"There are dresses, yes, many more than I wanted. But I could not let him be ashamed of me when we went out together, and travelled. Do you forgive me the dresses, Signorina? I wore them to please him. Please forgive me that also!"

Aurora dropped the things into the open box and laid both her hands on Regina's, bending down her radiant head and looking very earnestly into the anxious eyes.

"Forgiveness is not all from me to you, Regina," she said. "I want yours too."

"Mine?" The eyes grew wide and wondering.

"Don't you see that but for me he would have married you, and that I have been the cause of a great wrong to you?"

For one instant Regina's face darkened, her brows straightened themselves, and her lip curled. She remembered how, only two days ago, in the very next room, Marcello had insisted that she should he his wife. But as she looked into Aurora's innocent eyes she understood, and the cloud pa.s.sed from her own, and the bright smile came back. Aurora had spoken in the simplicity of her true heart, sure that it was only the memory of his love for her that had withheld Marcello from first to last; and Regina well knew that it had always been present with him, in spite of his brave struggle to put it away. That memory of another, which Regina had seen slowly reviving in him, had been for something in her refusal to marry him.

With the mysterious sure vision of those who are near death, she felt that it would hurt Aurora to know the truth, except from Marcello himself.

"If you have ever stood between us," she said, "you had the right. He loved you first. There is nothing to forgive in that. Afterwards he loved me a little. No one can take that from me, no one! It is mine, and it is all I have, and though I am going, and though I know that he is tired of me, it is still more than the world. To have it, as I have it, I would do again what I did, from the first."

The voice was weak and m.u.f.fled, but the words were distinct, and they were the confession of poor Regina's life.

"If he were here," she said, after a moment, "I would lay your hand in his. Only let me take that memory with me!"

The young girl rose and bent over her as she answered.

"It is yours, to keep for ever."

She stooped a little lower and kissed the dying woman's forehead.

Under the May moon a little brigantine came sailing up to a low island just within sight of Italy; when she was within half a mile of the reefs Don Antonino Maresca put her about, for he was a prudent man, and he knew that there are just a few more rocks in the sea than are in the charts. It was a quiet night, and he was beating up against a gentle northerly breeze.