He did not hear. He was pursuing his own train of thought, and presently he raised himself. Never had the apostolic dignity of his white head, his broad brow been more commanding. But what Eleanor saw, what perplexed her, was the subtle tremor of the lip, the doubt in the eyes.
"So you see, madame, our pleasant hours are almost over. In a few days I must be gone. I will not attempt to express what I owe to your most kind, most indulgent sympathy. It seems to me that in the "dark wood" of my life it was your conversation--when my heart was so sorely cast down--which revived my intelligence--and so held me up, till--till I could see my way, and choose my path again. It has given me a great many new ideas--this companionship you have permitted me. I humbly confess that I shall always henceforward think differently of women, and of the relations that men and women may hold to one another. But then, madame--"
He paused. Eleanor could see his hand trembling on his knee.
She raised herself on her elbow.
"Father Benecke! you have something to say to me!"
He hurried on.
"The other day you allowed us to change the _roles_. You had been my support. You threw yourself on mine. Ah! Madame, have I been of any a.s.sistance to you--then, and in the interviews you have since permitted me?
Have I strengthened your heart at all as you strengthened mine?"
His ardent, spiritual look compelled--and rea.s.sured her.
She sank back. A tear glittered on her brown lashes. She raised a hand to dash it away.
"I don"t know, Father--I don"t know. But to-day--for some mysterious reason--I seem almost to be happy again. I woke up with the feeling of one who had been buried under mountains of rocks and found them rolled away; of one who had been pa.s.sing through a delirium which was gone. I seem to care for nothing--to grieve for nothing. Sometimes you know that happens to people who are very ill. A numbness comes upon them.--But I am not numb. I feel everything. Perhaps, Father"--and she turned to him with her old sweet instinct--of one who loved to be loved--"perhaps you have been praying for me?"
She smiled at him half shyly. But he did not see it. His head bent lower and lower.
"Thank G.o.d!" he said, with the humblest emphasis. "Then, madame--perhaps--you will find the force--to forgive me!"
The words were low--the voice steady.
Eleanor sprang up.
"Father Benecke!--what have you been doing? Is--is Mr. Manisty here?"
She clung to the _loggia_ parapet for support. The priest looked at her pallor with alarm, with remorse, and spoke at once.
"He came to me last night."
Their eyes met, as though in battle--expressed a hundred questions--a hundred answers. Then she broke the silence.
"Where is he?" she said imperiously." Ah!--I see--I see!"
She sat down, fronting him, and panting a little.
"Miss Foster is not with me. Mr. Manisty is not with you. The inference is easy.--And you planned it! You took--you _dared_ to take--as much as this--into your own hands!"
He made no reply. He bent like a reed in the storm.
"There is no boldness like a saint"s"--she said bitterly,--"no hardness--like an angel"s! What I would not have ventured to do with my closest friend, my nearest and dearest--you--a stranger--have done--with a light heart. Oh! it is monstrous!--monstrous!"
She moved her neck from side to side as though she was suffocating--throwing back the light ruffle that encircled it.
"A stranger?"--he said slowly. His intense yet gentle gaze confronted hers.
"You refer, I suppose, to that most sacred, most intimate confidence I made to you?--which no man of honour or of heart could have possibly betrayed,"--she said pa.s.sionately. "Ah! you did well to warn me that it was no true confession--under no true seal! You should have warned me further--more effectually."
Her paleness was all gone. Her cheeks flamed. The priest felt that she was beside herself, and, traversed as his own mind was with the most poignant doubts and misgivings, he must needs wrestle with her, defend himself.
"Madame!--you do me some wrong," he said hurriedly. "At least in words I have told nothing--betrayed nothing. When I left him an hour ago Mr.
Manisty had no conception that you were here. After my first letter to him, he tells me that he relinquished the idea of coming to Torre Amiata, since if you had been staying here, I must have mentioned it."
Eleanor paused. "Subterfuge!" she cried, under her breath. Then, aloud--"You asked him to come."
"That, madame, is my crime," he admitted, with a mild and painful humility.
"Your anger hits me hard. But--do you remember?--you placed three lives in my hands. I found you helpless; you asked for help. I saw you day by day, more troubled, yet, as it seemed to me, more full of instincts towards generosity, towards peace. I felt--oh! madame, I felt with all my heart, that there lay just one step between you and a happiness that would compensate you a thousand times for all you had gone through. You say that I prayed for you. I did--often--and earnestly. And it seemed to me that--in our later conversations--I saw such signs of grace in you--such exquisite dispositions of the heart--that were the chance of action once more given to you--you would find the strength to seize the blessing that G.o.d offered you. And one evening in particular, I found you in an anguish that seemed to be destroying you. And you had opened your heart to me; you had asked my help as a Christian priest. And so, madame, as you say--I dared. I said, in writing to Mr. Manisty, who had told me he was coming northward--"if Torre Amiata is not far out of your road--look in upon me." Neither your name nor Miss Foster"s pa.s.sed my lips. But since--I confess--I have lived in much disturbance of mind!"
Eleanor laughed.
"Are all priests as good casuists as you, Father?"
His eyes wavered a little as though her words stung. But he did not reply.
There was a pause. Eleanor turned towards the parapet and looked outward towards the road and the forest. Her face and eyes were full of an incredible animation; her lips were lightly parted to let the quick breath pa.s.s.
Then of a sudden she withdrew. Her eyes moved back to Father Benecke; she bent forward and held out both her hands.
"Father--I forgive you! Let us make peace."
He took the small fingers into his large palms with a grat.i.tude that was at once awkward and beautiful.
"I don"t know yet"--he said, in a deep perplexity--"whether I absolve myself."
"You will soon know," she said almost with gaiety. "Oh! it is quite possible"--she threw up one hand in a wild childish gesture--"it is quite possible that to-morrow I may be at your feet, asking you to give me penance for my rough words. On the other hand--Anyway, Father, you have not found me a very dutiful penitent?"
"I expected castigation," he said meekly. "If the castigation is done, I have come off better than I could have hoped."
She raised herself, and took up her gloves that were lying on the little table beside her sofa.
"You see"--she said, talking very fast--"I am an Englishwoman, and my race is not a docile one. Here, in this village, I have noticed a good deal, and the _ma.s.saja_ gossips to me. There was a fight in the street the other night. The men were knifing each other. The _parroco_ sent them word that they should come at once to his house--_per pacificarli_. They went. There is a girl, living with her sister, whose husband has a bad reputation. The _parroco_ ordered her to leave--found another home for her. She left. There is a lad who made some blasphemous remarks in the street on the day of the Madonna"s procession. The _parroco_ ordered him to do penance. He did it.
But those things are not English. Perhaps they are Bavarian?"
He winced, but he had recovered his composure.
"Yes, madame, they are Bavarian also. But it seems that even an Englishwoman can sometimes feel the need of another judgment than her own?"
She smiled. All the time that she had made her little speech about the village, she had been casting quick glances along the road. It was evident that her mind was only half employed with what she was saying. The rose-flush in her cheeks, the dainty dress, the halo of fair hair gave her back youth and beauty; and the priest gazed at her in astonishment.
"Ah!"--she said, with a vivacity that was almost violence--"here she is.
Father--please--!" And with a peremptory gesture, she signed to him to draw back, as she had done, into the shadow, out of sight of the road.
But the advancing figure was plain to both of them.