"Free--?"
"My choice is made. I have resigned my right to the succession. I shall
not return to Pianura."
She continued to stare at him, leaning against the chair from which de
Crucis had risen.
"Your choice is made! Your choice is made!" she repeated. "And you have
chosen--"
"You," he said simply. "Will you go to France with me, Fulvia? Will you
be my wife and work with me at a distance for the cause that, in Italy,
we may not serve together? I have never abandoned the aims your father
taught me to strive for; they are dearer, more sacred to me than ever;
but I cannot strive for them alone. I must feel your hand in mine, I
must know that your heart beats with mine, I must hear the voice of
liberty speak to me in your voice--" He broke off suddenly and went up
to her. "All this is nothing," he said. "I love you. I cannot give you
up. That is all."
For a moment, as he spoke, her face shone with an extraordinary light.
She looked at him intently, as one who seemed to gaze beyond and through
him, at some mystic vision that his words evoked. Then the brightness
faded.
"The picture you draw is a beautiful one," she said, speaking slowly, in
sweet deliberate tones, "but it is not for me to look on. What you said
last is not true. If you love me it is because we have thought the same
thoughts, dreamed the same dream, heard the same voice--in each other's
voices, perhaps, as you say, but none the less a real voice, apart from
us and above us, and one which would speak to us as loudly if we were
apart--one which both of us must follow to the end.
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