She told him all with brief, quiet words. She spoke softly, her eyes, her fingers, resting on the embroidery of her dress. She seemed the guilty one, but dignified in her error, ready to be punished. She told of her doubts, how they had swelled and flamed. She repeated the reproaches she had made to herself, described her visions, her delirious cruelty, her suspicions, the dream, the presentiment, her intention of pardon.
Meanwhile the sun went down. The golden serpent withdrew to the shore, following the sparkling veil of victorious water. The river was divided into two zones—one of tender violet under the pale heaven of the east, the other blood-stained beneath the burning west.
But in water and sky the conflict was ended between the colours and the lights. All was unified and confounded into one supreme harmony of peace. The light had re-entered into the shadow; the shadow still sought the light. The pale water floated into the luminous zone, and the glowing waves retreated slowly towards a mysterious distance, beyond the horizon, whither the human gaze could not follow.
The crowd of grey flowers slept on, motionless on the declivity. The leaves were silent; everything hadbecome drowsy, lulled by the simple song of the trickle in the depth of the miniature abyss.
And in all this harmonious silence, Regina, as she ended her tale,feltthe solemn indifference of nature for man and for his paltry fortunes.
"We are alone," she concluded, taking suggestion from this impression of solitude and abandonment; "alone in the world of our sins, if there is really such a thing as sin. Let us pity, each in our turn, and renew our existence. If we are at war, who will help us? Our relations, our friends, might die for us without their death bringing our suffering one moment of relief. I once read of a husband who wished to kill his wife. At the moment he tried to wound her she—bewildered—flung herself on his breast, instinctively seeking his protection against the murderer. How often have not I, in those days of doubt, while—to my shame—I was spying upon you, while I was wrestling with the idea of turning to strangers that I might know—know—how often have I not felt the impulse to come to you, to pray you to speak, to save, to protect me! See! Nature herself is indifferent to us at this moment, while, perhaps, our whole future is being decided. Every atom, every sparkle, every wave, runs to its own destiny without attending to us. We are alone; alone and lost. If we separate, where shall we go? and, moreover, if we did wrong, was it not precisely that we might not be separated?"
"But," said Antonio, with one last attempt at defence, "you once wished——"
And Regina felt a final touch of impatience. She was speaking as he ought to have spoken, and was he still resisting? What did he want?
"There's no good in beginning all over again!" she cried. "This is enough. It seems to me that already I am reasoning too much for you to understand that between you and me there is no longer room for reproaches."
"Yes, Regina," he sighed; "you reason too much, and that is what terrifies me!"
His eyes sank. He looked at his hand, raised it, and let it fall heavily on Regina's, which he had retained all this while on his knee.
"Why do I reason too much? Why are you terrified?"
"Because if you really believed in my guilt you would not speak as you are speaking. You speak like this because you do not believe it—yet——"
She felt her heart beat. He was right! But she summoned her forces and overcame herself.
"Look at me!" she commanded.
Antonio looked at her. His eyes were veiled in tears.
Then it was true.
Regina had never seen her husband weep, nor had she ever imagined he could weep.
At that moment, when everything darkened within her, not in swift passing eclipse, but in unending twilight, a confused recollection came to her of something far off—so far off that for years and years it had not returned to her mind. She saw again a man seated before a burning hearth. This man crouched, his elbows on his knees, his face on his hands, and he wept; while a woman bent over him, her hand laid on his bald head.
The man was her father, the spendthrift; the woman her patient mother.
Was it a dream? or a reality of her unconsciousinfancy, far away, forgotten? She did not know; but at that moment in the shadow of her soul a light appeared, rose-red like the reflection of the burning hearth in that distant picture of human error and of human pity.
She did not think of laying her hand on her husband's head as her mother had laid hers on the head of that father who, perhaps, had been more guilty than Antonio; but she remembered the serene and beautiful life of that woman who had fulfilled her cycle as all good women must fulfil theirs, mid the love of her children and for their sake. Never had the widow made those sad memories to weigh upon her children. If they suffered, as by law of nature all born of woman must suffer, the memory of her did not add to their grief, but softened it.
"And I, too," thought Regina, "must fulfil my cycle. Our child must never know that we have suffered and have erred."
So she must pardon; more than ever she must pardon! Like the waters of the river, she must pass silently towards the light of an horizon beyond the earth, towards the sea of infinite charity, where the greatest of human errors is no more than the remembrance of an extinguished spark.
They came home in the carriage left by the five foreigners. A tender and transparent twilight had fallen around and within them. Resigned to the Nostalgia of a light lost for ever, not joyous nor very sad, like husband and wife re-united after a long separation, they clasped each other by the hand, silently promising to help each other as one helps the blind.