Harrigan laid it to his lack of normal vision, but to his single optic there was anything but misery in her beautiful blue eyes. True, they sparkled with tears; but that signified nothing: he hadn"t been married these thirty-odd years without learning that a woman weeps for any of a thousand and one reasons.
"Do you care for him still?"
"Not a day pa.s.sed during these many months that I did not vow I hated him."
"Any one else know?"
"The padre. I had to tell some one or go mad. But I didn"t hate him. I could no more put him out of my life than I could stop breathing. Ah, I have been so miserable and unhappy!" She laid her head upon his knees and clumsily he stroked it. His girl!
"That"s the trouble with us Irish, Nora. We jump without looking, without finding whether we"re right or wrong. Well, your daddy"s opinion is that you should have read his first letter. If it didn"t ring right, why, you could have jumped the traces. I don"t believe he did anything wrong at all. It isn"t in the man"s blood to do anything underboard."
"But I _saw_ her," a queer look in her eyes as she glanced up at him.
"I don"t care a kioodle if you did. Take it from me, it was a put-up job by that Calabrian woman. She might have gone to his room for any number of harmless things. But I think she was curious."
"Why didn"t she come to me, if she wanted to ask questions?"
"I can see you answering "em. She probably just wanted to know if you were married or not. She might have been in love with him, and then she might not. These Italians don"t know half the time what they"re about, anyhow.
But I don"t believe it of Courtlandt. He doesn"t line up that way.
Besides, he"s got eyes. You"re a thousand times more attractive. He"s no fool. Know what I think? As she was coming out she saw _you_ at your door; and the devil in her got busy."
Nora rose, flung her arms around him and kissed him.
"Look out for that tin ear!"
"Oh, you great big, loyal, true-hearted man! Open that door and let me get out to the terrace. I want to sing, sing!"
"He said he was going to Milan in the morning."
She danced to the door and was gone.
"Nora!" he called, impatiently. He listened in vain for the sound of her return. "Well, I"ll take the count when it comes to guessing what a woman"s going to do. I"ll go out and square up with the old girl. Wonder how this news will harness up with her social bug?"
Courtlandt got into his compartment at Varenna. He had tipped the guard liberally not to open the door for any one else, unless the train was crowded. As the shrill blast of the conductor"s horn sounded the warning of "all aboard," the door opened and a heavily veiled woman got in hurriedly. The train began to move instantly. The guard slammed the door and latched it. Courtlandt sighed: the futility of trusting these Italians, of trying to buy their loyalty! The woman was without any luggage whatever, not even the usual magazine. She was dressed in brown, her hat was brown, her veil, her gloves, her shoes. But whether she was young or old was beyond his deduction. He opened his _Corriere_ and held it before his eyes; but he found reading impossible. The newspaper finally slipped from his hands to the floor where it swayed and rustled unnoticed.
He was staring at the promontory across Lecco, the green and restful hill, the little earthly paradise out of which he had been unjustly cast. He couldn"t understand. He had lived cleanly and decently; he had wronged no man or woman, nor himself. And yet, through some evil twist of fate, he had lost all there was in life worth having. The train lurched around a shoulder of the mountain. He leaned against the window. In a moment more the villa was gone.
What was it? He felt irresistibly drawn. Without intending to do so, he turned and stared at the woman in brown. Her hand went to the veil and swept it aside. Nora was as full of romance as a child. She could have stopped him before he made the boat, but she wanted to be alone with him.
"Nora!"
She flung herself on her knees in front of him. "I am a wretch!" she said.
He could only repeat her name.
"I am not worth my salt. Ah, why did you run away? Why did you not pursue me, importune me until I wearied? ... perhaps gladly? There were times when I would have opened my arms had you been the worst scoundrel in the world instead of the dearest lover, the patientest! Ah, can you forgive me?"
"Forgive you, Nora?" He was numb.
"I am a miserable wretch! I doubted you, I! When all I had to do was to recall the way people misrepresented things I had done! I sent back your letters ... and read and reread the old blue ones. Don"t you remember how you used to write them on blue paper? ... Flora told me everything. It was only because she hated me, not that she cared anything about you. She told me that night at the ball. I believe the duke forced her to do it. She was at the bottom of the abduction. When you kissed me ... didn"t you know that I kissed you back? Edward, I am a miserable wretch, but I shall follow you wherever you go, and I haven"t even a vanity-box in my hand-bag!" There were tears in her eyes. "Say that I am a wretch!"
He drew her up beside him. His arms closed around her so hungrily, so strongly, that she gasped a little. He looked into her eyes; his glance traveled here and there over her face, searching for the familiar dimple at one corner of her mouth.
"Nora!" he whispered.
"Kiss me!"
And then the train came to a stand, jerkily. They fell back against the cushions.
"Lecco!" cried the guard through the window.
They laughed like children.
"I bribed him," she said gaily. "And now...."
"Yes, and now?" eagerly, if still bewilderedly.
"Let"s go back!"
THE END