and was of great comfort and assistance, nor that, as the reader will
soon see, I gave her, and with good reason, respect, gratitude, a strong
affection--as much of these as a man can give to any woman born. Of her
feelings towards me at this time I shall not attempt any relation. She
herself had said that she loved me. Whether she meant by that more than
a sympathetic affection, a common cause, an adventure shared, a
comradeship, I know not--or at least I did not know then. All I have to
add is, that she never betrayed it.




CHAPTER XIV

MY HAPPY DAYS; THEIR UNHAPPY END


I lived in Pistoja for a month or more, very happily, without money in
my pocket or a house to my name, to the benefit of my health and spirits
and with no injury to my heart's treasure. I mean by that expression
that I by no means, in the interests of my new surroundings, forgot
Donna Aurelia; on the contrary, I assured Virginia every day that
expiation was extremely necessary for me, and Aurelia's restoration to
her husband a vital part of it. Virginia, without professing to
understand me, fell in with my convictions; but she replied to them that
my Aurelia must either have gone to Siena, or be about to go. If the
latter, we should be in the way to meet her by staying in Pistoja; if
she was already at home with her mother, the more time we left for the
soreness to subside the better it would be for all of us. I fell in with
this line of argument, which seemed to me unanswerable, because I was