She drew away from him with a gesture of despair. The struggle with
Sister Mary had disordered her hair and it fell on her white neck in
loosened strands. "My cloak--my mask--" she faltered vaguely, clasping
her hands across her bosom; then suddenly dropped to a seat and burst
into tears. Once before--but in how different a case!--he had seen her
thus thrilled with weeping. Then fate had thrown him humbled at her
feet, now it was she who cried him mercy in every line of her bowed head
and shaken breast; and the thought of that other meeting flooded his
heart with pity.
He knelt before her, seeking her hands. "Fulvia, why do you shrink from
me?" he whispered. But she shook her head and wept on.
At last her sobs subsided and she rose to her feet. "I must go back,"
said she in a low tone, and would have passed him.
"Back? To the convent?"
"To the convent," she said after him; but she made no farther effort to
move.
The question that tortured him sprang forth. "You have taken the vows?"
"A month since," she answered.
He hid his face in his hands and for a moment both were silent. "And you
have no other word for me--none?" he faltered at last.
She fixed him with a hard bright stare. "Yes--one," she cried; "keep a
place for me among your gallant recollections."
"Fulvia!" he said with sudden strength, and caught her by the arm.
"Let me pass!" she cried.
"No, by heaven!" he retorted; "not till you listen to me--not till you
tell me how it is that I come upon you here!--Ah, child," he broke out,
"do you fancy I don't see how little you belong in such scenes? That I
don't know you are here through some dreadful error? Fulvia," he
pleaded, "will you never trust me?" And at the word he burned with
blushes in the darkness.
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