She sat down beside him, and endeavoured to talk as though she were quite unconcerned. She tried not to look at his face, upon which it seemed to her that death was already fixing the last mask of life"s comedy. It was the more terrible, because he was so quiet and so sure of life that morning, so convinced that he was better, so almost certain that he should get well.
It seemed an awful thing to sit there, talking against death; but she did her best not to think, and only to talk and talk on, and make him believe that she was cheerful, while, in a kind way, she kept him from coming back to within a phrase"s length of his love for her. It was hard for him, too, to make any effort. The doctor had said so. And all the time, she fancied that his features became by degrees less mobile, and that the transparent pallor so long familiar to her was turning to another hue, grey and stony, which she had never seen.
Suddenly, while she was speaking of some indifferent thing, his eyelids closed and twitched, and his hand went out towards hers, almost spasmodically. She caught it and held it, bending far forward, and again her heart stood still till she missed its beating.
"What is it?" she asked, staring into his face, and already half wild with fear.
He could shake his head feebly, but for a moment he could not speak.
With one of her hands she still held his, and with the other she pressed his brow. He smiled, as in a spasm, and then his face was a little distorted. She felt his life slipping from her, under her very touch, as though it were her fault because she would not hold it and keep it for him.
"Gianluca!" she cried, repeating his name in an agonized tone.
"Gianluca! You must not die! I am here--"
He opened his eyes, and the faint smile came back, but without a spasm this time.
"It was a little pain," he said. "I am sorry--it frightened you."
"Thank G.o.d!" she exclaimed, still bending over him. "Oh--I thought you were gone!"
"Your voice--would bring me back--Veronica," he said, with many little efforts, word by word, but with life in his face.
She moved, and held the gla.s.s to his lips. Bravely he lifted his hand, and tried to hold it himself. He drank a little of the stimulant, and then his pale head sank back, with the short, fair hair about his forehead, like a glory.
"Ah yes!" he said, speaking more easily, a moment later. "Death could never be so near but that you might stand between him and me--if you would," he added, so softly that the three words just reached her ears, as the far echo of sad music, full of beseeching tenderness.
Still she held his hand, and gazed down into his face. They had told her long ago that he was dying of love for her. In that moment she believed it true. He seemed to tell her so, to be telling it with his last breath. And each breath might be the last. Science could not save him.
Physicians disagreed--the great authority himself could not say whether he was to live or die. He fainted, fell back, seemed dead already, and her voice and touch brought him to life, happy for an instant, hoping still and living only by the beating of hope"s wings. And with all that, though she did not love him, he was to her the dearest of all living beings. Holding his hand still, she looked upward, as though to be alone with herself for one breathing s.p.a.ce. But as she stood there, she pressed his fingers little by little more tightly, not knowing what she did, so that he wondered.
Then she bent down again, and steadily gazed into the upturned blue eyes, and once more smoothed away the fair hair from the pallid brow.
"Do you wish it very much?" she asked simply.
Half paralyzed though he was, he started, and the light that came suddenly to his face, wavered and sank and rose once more. She seemed to hear his words again, saying that she could stand between death and him, were death ever so near.
"You?" he faltered. "Wish for you? Ah G.o.d! Veronica--" his face grew dead again. "No--no--I did not understand--"
"But I mean it!" she said, in desperate, low tones, for she thought he was sinking back. "I will marry you, Gianluca! I will, dear--I will--I am in earnest!"
Slowly his eyes opened again and looked at her, wide, startled, and half blind with joy. So the leader looks who, stunned to death between the door-posts of the hard-won gate, wakes unhurt to life in the tide of the victory he led, and hears the strong music of triumph, and the huge shout of brave men whose bursting throats cry out his name for very glory"s sake, their own and his.
Gianluca"s eyes opened, and with sudden pressure he grasped the hand that had so long held his, believing because he held it and felt the flesh and blood and the warmth in his own shadowy hold.
"Veronica--love!" She would not have thought that he could press her fingers so hard, weak as he was.
The word smote her, even then, with a small icy chill, and though she smiled, there was a shadow in her face. Again he doubted.
"Veronica--for the love of G.o.d--you are not deceiving me, to save my life?" The vision of despair rose in his eyes.
"Deceive you? I?" she cried, with sudden energy. "Indeed, indeed, I mean it, as I said it."
"Yes--but--but if, to-morrow--" Again his voice was failing, and she was hand to hand with death, for him.
"No! There shall be no to-morrow for that--it shall be now!"
"Now? To-day? Now?"
He seemed to rise and sink, and sink and rise again, on the low-surging waves of his life"s ebbing tide.
"Yes--now!" she answered. "This moment Don Teodoro is in the house--I will call him--let me go for a moment--only one moment!"
"No--no! Do not leave me!" He clung frantically to her hand.
"But--yes--call him--call him! And Taquisara. He is my friend--Oh! It kills me to let you go!"
It was indeed the very supreme moment. The great burst of happiness had almost killed him, and he was like a child, not knowing what he wanted.
Still he clutched her hand. A quick thought crossed her mind. She had gone to the window for a moment, to fasten it back, and had seen Taquisara walking under the vines. He might be there.
"Let me go to the window," she said, regaining her self-possession.
"Taquisara may be on the bastion--I saw him there. He will call Don Teodoro, and I shall not have to leave you."
Any reasoning which kept her by his side was divinely good. Her words calmed him a little, and his hands gradually loosened themselves. But as she turned quickly, he uttered a very low cry, and tried to catch her skirt. She did not hear him. She was already speaking from the window; for the Sicilian was still there, walking up and down, as he had done for more than an hour. She called to him. He started, and looked up through the broad leaves.
"Get Don Teodoro at once, and bring him," she cried. "He is in the house--somewhere."
Taquisara thought that Gianluca was dying, and neither paused nor answered, as he disappeared within.
Veronica came back instantly. She had not been gone thirty seconds, but already the sick man"s face was grey again, though his eyes were wide and staring. His head had fallen to one side, on the brown silk cushion, in his last attempt to reach her. With both hands, she raised him a little, so that he lay straight again.
"They are coming--they are coming, dear one!" she repeated. "Live, live!
Gianluca--live, for me!"
In her agony of fighting for his life, she pushed his hair back, and pressed her lips in one long kiss upon his forehead. A shiver ran through him, and the sense came back to his eyes. But though she held his hand, there was no more strength in it to grasp hers. He sighed the words she heard.
"Love--is it you? Veronica--love--life! Ah, Christ!"
And his lids closed again. The door opened, and was shut, and Veronica half turned her head to see, but she brought her face tenderly nearer to his, as though to let him know that it was for his sake she looked away.
Don Teodoro and Taquisara were both in the room. Even before she spoke, she had changed her hold upon Gianluca"s fingers, and held his right hand in hers, as those hold hands who are to be wedded.
"Bless us!" she said to the priest. "This is our marriage! Say the words--quickly!"
Taquisara"s face was livid, for he had as much of instant death in him as the dying man, though he could not die. But he did not fail. He came and knelt on the other side of the couch, away from Veronica. The priest stood at the foot, in pale hesitation. Veronica"s eyes commanded.
"Speak quickly!" she said. "I will marry him--I have said it!
Gianluca--say it--say that you will marry me!"
Holding his right hand, with her left thrust under his pillow she lifted him so that he sat almost upright. It needed all her strength, and she was very desperate for him.
"Volo!" The one word floated on the air, breathed, not spoken, and dead silence followed.
Again Veronica turned to Don Teodoro.