"I am ignorant as to how much she loves you. She has not told me. We don't discuss these things in England," added Miss Ford quickly.
"Six weeks together," he murmured thoughtfully, "only six weeks, and a girl of twenty. It is impossible for her to be too much in love with me."
"Let us hope so, if only we may hope so," replied Miss Ford.
"I hope so, I believe it; it must be so. Lilian must be loved by another; she must be happy with another, and forget her shadow of love in the Engadine, her phantom of the Engadine."
The colloquy was ended. The last words came from the lips of the quiet, good Englishwoman.
"Won't you now content my friend, Signor Sabini? Won't you give me a reply to her letter? To the letter I brought you to-day?"
Uncertainly and anxiously he took the letter which remained abandoned on the writing-table. With a rapid movement he tore open the envelope. It contained the following few words in English:
"My love; tell me if you ever loved me, if you still love me. I shall always love you.-- LILIAN."
Lucio read aloud the few simple, frank words, the tender question, the deep promise. And all the amorous life of the Engadine reappeared to him, in all its most intimate and invincible attraction. His whole soul reeled, his heart broke.
"Tell her how much I loved her, Miss May; tell her how much I still love her; that far-away and all the time I shall always be hers. Tell her that; it is the truth. I have never deceived her. That is the answer, the only answer."
Thus he besought May Ford, with anxious eyes and trembling lips, in a cry that arose from the innermost depths of his heart, that the cry might reach even to Lilian.
"I can't tell her that," replied Miss Ford gravely, "I will not tell her that."
"But why not; if it be the truth? Why not?"
"If I tell her, Signor Sabini, she can never forget you, she will never cease to love you. She must never know that you love her."
"Indeed, indeed!" he replied sadly, "and how could she ever understand, she who is innocent, simple, and pure, that I can love her and yet fly from her; that I can love her and remain with Beatrice Herz? That is my inexorable condemnation--Lilian can never understand."
"Signor Sabini, tell me the only thing necessary for her to forget; something short and convincing that can turn Lilian."