Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/843

Rh pose behind her praise. “I have given you small proof of it!” I said.

She seemed surprised. “In bringing me this letter? What else could you do?” She sighed deeply. “You can give me proof enough now.”

She had dropped into a chair, and I saw that we had reached the most difficult point in our interview.

“Captain Alingdon,” she said, “does any one else know of this letter?”

“No. I was alone in the archives when I found it.”

“And you spoke of it to no one?”

“To no one.”

“Then no one must know.”

I bowed. "It is for you to decide.”

She paused. "Not even my mother,” she continued, with a painful blush.

I looked at her in amazement. "Not even—?”

She shook her head sadly. "You think me a cruel daughter? Well—he was a cruel friend. What he did was done for Italy: shall I allow myself to be surpassed?”

I felt a pang of commiseration for the mother. "But you will at least tell the Countess—"

Her eyes filled with tears. "My poor mother—don’t make it more difficult for me!”

"But I don’t understand—"

"Don’t you see that she might find it impossible to forgive him? She has suffered so much! And I can’t risk that—for in her anger she might speak. And even if she forgave him, she might be tempted to show the letter. Don’t you see that, even now, a word of this might ruin him? I will trust his fate to no one. If Italy needed him then she needs him far more to-day.”

She stood before me magnificently, in the splendor of her great refusal; then she turned to the writing-table at which she had been seated when I came in. Her sealing-taper was still alight, and she held her brother’s letter to the flame. I watched her in silence while it burned; but one more question rose to my lips.

"You will tell him, then, what you have done for him?” I cried.

And at that the heroine turned woman, melted and pressed unhappy hands in mine.

"Don’t you see that I can never tell him what I do for him? That is my gift to Italy,” she said.

 

