Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/225

 LUCRECIA.

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��read the touching epitaph. Lucrecia placed a bunch of autumn flowers. which she had gathered along the way, upon his grave, and then she sat down near it, and could not restrain her tears.

"What is it, darling?" said Marcel, wonderingly, "you are crying, Lucre- cia."

" It is so sad to die when one is loved."

" Why speak of dying !"

She did not reply, but clasped his hand.

" Poor Guiseppe !"

This was her only moment of weak- ness during the two days which she spent alone with Marcel. The rest of the time she abandoned herself to the completeness of love. She was happy, with a feverish happiness which be- came more intense as the hours passed away.

" A day like this does not come often in a lifetime," she would say every time a sad thought came into her mind. Sometimes she would look at her watch, hiding a shudder at seeing how the time flew by, and she counted the moments which remained. " How short they are," she said to herself, " and nothing can prolong them nothing ! nothing ! But I forget, in thinking of the end, that I am tasting the most perfect happiness. The minutes roll swiftly by ; 1 speak and they are gone." Then she placed her head upon Mar- cel's shoulder and held him tightly as if she would lose herself in him ; stop- ping his breath as if by so doing she could retain the present, this fleeing happiness, the false god, to which one sacrifices the future and eternity, and which, by the way, does not exist.

Why was it that Marcel did not di- vine these terrible thoughts? Why did he not read her awful resolve in her eyes? Why did he not hear the chant of the swan ? Who knows ! while one abandoned himself to love without fear ; the other evidently drained the last drop from the cup of life, and said : '• Thi< day is my last, there will be no to-morrow."

��The morning of the third day Lucre- cia told him that she was going to Florence, on business for her husband. She said this in a calm voice, and very coldly, she had such perfect command o( herself.

•• I will go with you," cried Marcel.

'• No," said she, " It is impossible." Then she added, " I have foigotton the Count Palandra long enough. The time for duty has come, and I must answer its call."

"What do you mean? The time for duty? Lucrecia, where are you going? What are you going to do?" For the first time the idea of danger presented itself to him ; the blood left his heart, and Lucrecia heard a sound like an enraged lion.

"This is nothing of importance," she said in a reassuring voice, " Only some matters of business. Do not be uneasy, it will quickly be done."

" Know at least," he replied sternly, " That I can and shall protect you from all dangers."

•' My darling ! My well beloved !" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck, and looking at him as if she would carry away with her every line of his countenance. She tore herself away to stifle the cry of despair that rose to her lips. By a supreme effort she repressed the heart broken words, and added simply : " Adieu !" She hurried to her carriage, and hardly had the horses taken a dozen steps when she burst into the most heart- breaking sobs. But suddenly they ceased, and she quickly dried her eyes. Marcel was following the carriage.

" If you are going first to Pistoja let me go with you," cried he. Suddenly, Lucrecia's face brightened as if the sun had broken forth from a stormy sky. " Come," said she ; and while he was getting in she murmured with delirious passion : "An hour more of love."

How short this hour was ; how quickly the carriage went ; how rapidly the wheels traced their double track in the dusty road, d'hey reached Pistoja. Lucrecia assumed her old severe expression, and went up to her

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