She was not smiling, yet there was
a radiance on her face which did not seem to be given by the sunset.
Rather did the light appear to come from within. Yet, because no one
said aloud the words that went echoing through his heart, Vanno would
not believe that Mary was dead.
"If I have lost you in this world," he said aloud, as though she could
hear him, "I will follow where you are, to tell you that we belong to
one another through all eternity, and nothing can part us. But you
haven't gone. You could not leave me so."
As he spoke to her, on his knees, her cold hand pressed against his warm
throat, he kept his eyes upon her face, hungrily, watching for some sign
that her spirit heard him from very far off. But there was no change.
The dark, double line of her lashes did not break. Her lips kept their
faint, mysterious half-smile.
Vanno resolved that if she had gone, he too would go, for without her
the world was empty and dead.
It was then that Peter stole to the open door with Apollonia, and looked
in. Her impulse was to cry out, and run into the room to sob at her
friend's feet; but something held her back. It was as if she caught a
strain of music; and she remembered the air. It came from the opera of
"Romeo e Giuletta," which she had heard in New York a year ago. The
music was as reminiscently distinct as if her brain were a gramophone.
She had seen a tableau like this, of two lovers, while that music played
in the theatre; and with tears in her eyes she had thought, "If only
Romeo had waited, if he had had faith, he could have called her back
again.
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