“To whom have we a duty to fulfil, Maria? To what?”
“We have a duty first of all to ourselves, Marco. And that is to live in truth and liberty of soul. Since our love is ended and our dream of happiness is _over_, let us not lie an instant longer, and separate.”
“Shall I never see you again, my friend?”
“I shall not see you, and you will not seek me. We will fly as far as we can and ought from each other.”
“Yes, it is very cruel, but it has to be done.”
“I shall suffer very much, because, apart from passion and love, you are very dear to me.”
“You are very dear to me, my friend,” she added, with a fresh veil of sorrow in her voice, “but it is necessary.”
“But what will become of me, Maria? Tell me. What will become of me? What shall I do? Where shall I go to lie me down? How will my life go on? Where shall I tie it that the knot does not come undone?”
She did not reply at once. Her eyes were closed as if to concentrate her thoughts, and her mouth was firm as if to close her words; her hands, loaded with jewels, were crossed over her knees in a familiar gesture.
“Maria, Maria, I have come purposely to ask you this, because you ought to tell me, because I do not know and you do. What will become of me without you? What shall I do with my soul? What shall I do with my days? Maria, think of me. Succour me, my friend, my sister, source of all my comfort. Tell me, tell me.”
A shadow of a smile, a bitter shadow of a smile, traced itself on Maria Guasco’s lips at the uneasiness of the man’s convulsed conscience.
“Well,” she said, softly and slowly, “after doing our duty towards ourselves in separating, we have to accomplish it towards others, Marco.”
She looked him squarely in the eyes, and said--
“You will marry Vittoria Casalta, Marco.”
“What does it matter? Thousands of marriages are made so. She has loved you for years, and you were betrothed. You have betrayed her. She has waited, and she is a patient creature. She has waited, and, see, she was right to wait.”
“I can’t marry her with a heart devastated by passion, with an unconsolable regret.”
“Marco, hearts are healed. Yours will heal. Regrets go to sleep at the bottom of the soul, and one day you will wake up consoled. You ought to marry Vittoria Casalta.”