Olive managed to whisper to her, once as they stood close together:
"He's a cwuel _bwute_ ... we must get you out of his power somehow."
"Don't, Olive ... don't speak of it," Sophy had gasped out.
"Very well. But I'll be with you first thing to-morrow."
"No ... please. I must be alone. I must think."
Olive, whose heart was sound though so elastic, understood perfectly.
"Very well," she said again. "But mind you send for me the first moment you feel you need me."
"Thanks," murmured Sophy. "Thanks--dear Olive."
Amaldi did not try to talk to her. She was very grateful to him for this. He understood too well. These others pitied but did not understand. To have felt the close contact of a compassion that comprehended was more than she could have endured. It would have broken her down utterly. But he watched her from afar with a quiet yet absorbed look, that was not without meaning to Suberov, on whom, also, Sophy had made a deep and poignant impression.
He came near the young man, and said in Italian in his sweet, melancholy voice, after himself regarding Sophy in silence for a moment:
Amaldi answered dreamily, as though it were quite natural for the old statesman to address him in his native tongue.
"Yes, Excellency, but souls like that are made for sorrow."
"And sorrow for such souls," said Suberov, with his mournful, delicate smile.
Sophy found herself in the grey, rainy dawn, still walking to and fro in her bedroom. She had always thought that it was only in books and plays that people wrung their hands, but now she was twisting her fingers so hard together that the rings bit cruelly. She stripped them off--then stood gazing curiously at the finger where her wedding ring had been. She felt that there should be a little, blistered band where the poisoned ring had rested.
Yes--it was all over. There could be no compromise--no atonement this time. It was over--over. She would take her son and go back to her own country, to her own people. Nothing, no one could move her. And she heard again in imagination that brutal voice, shouting: "You lie!"
She went to a little cupboard and poured out a dose of _sal volatile_. This she drank, then leaned back for a few moments on the couch at the foot of her bed.