'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 God 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?'
'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.