I am only going to tell you what you must do for the future.”
He took her hand; it was cold, and it trembled violently in his.
“I will not ask what he has been saying to you,” continued the priest; “for it might distress you to answer, and I have, moreover, had means of knowing that your youth and beauty have made a strong impression on him. I will pass over, then, all reference to the words he may have been speaking to you; and I will come at once to what I have now to say, in my turn. Nanina, my child, arm yourself with all your courage, and promise me, before we part tonight, that you will see Signor Fabio no more.”
Nanina turned round suddenly, and fixed her eyes on him, with an expression of terrified incredulity. “No more?”
“You are very young and very innocent,” said Father Rocco; “but surely you must have thought before now of the difference between Signor Fabio and you. Surely you must have often remembered that you are low down among the ranks of the poor, and that he is high up among the rich and the nobly born?”
Nanina’s hands dropped on the priest’s knees. She bent her head down on them, and began to weep bitterly.
“Surely you must have thought of that?” reiterated Father Rocco.
“Oh, I have often, often thought of it!” murmured the girl “I have mourned over it, and cried about it in secret for many nights past. He said I looked pale, and ill, and out of spirits to-day, and I told him it was with thinking of that!”
“And what did he say in return?”
There was no answer. Father Rocco looked down. Nanina raised her head directly from his knees, and tried to turn it away again. He took her hand and stopped her.
“Come!” he said; “speak frankly to me. Say what you ought to say to your father and your friend. What was his answer, my child, when you reminded him of the difference between you?”
“He said I was born to be a lady,” faltered the girl, still struggling to turn her face away, “and that I might make myself one if I would learn and be patient. He said that if he had all the noble ladies in Pisa to choose from on one side, and only little Nanina on the other, he would hold out his hand to me, and tell them, ‘This shall be my wife.’ He said love knew no difference of rank; and that if he was a nobleman and rich, it was all the more reason why he should please himself. He was so kind, that I thought my heart would burst while he was speaking; and my little sister liked him so, that she got upon his knee and kissed him. Even our dog, who growls at other strangers, stole to his side and licked his hand. Oh, Father Rocco! Father Rocco!” The tears burst out afresh, and the lovely head dropped once more, wearily, on the priest’s knee.
Father Rocco smiled to himself, and waited to speak again till she was calmer.
“Supposing,” he resumed, after some minutes of silence, “supposing Signor Fabio really meant all he said to you — ”
Nanina started up, and confronted the priest boldly for the first time since he had entered the room.
“Supposing!” she exclaimed, her cheeks beginning to redden, and her dark blue eyes flashing suddenly through her tears “Supposing! Father Rocco, Fabio would never deceive me. I would die here at your feet, rather than doubt the least word he said to me!”
The priest signed to her quietly to return to the stool. “I never suspected the child had so much spirit in her,” he thought to himself.
“I would die,” repeated Nanina, in a voice that began to falter now. “I would die rather than doubt him.”
“I will not ask you to doubt him,” said Father Rocco, gently; “and I will believe in him myself as firmly as you do. Let us suppose, my child, that you have learned patiently all the many things of which you are now ignorant, and which it is necessary for a lady to know. Let us suppose that Signor Fabio has really violated all the laws that govern people in his high station and has taken you to him publicly as his wife. You would be happy then, Nanina; but would he? He has no father or mother to control him, it is true; but he has friends — many friends and intimates in his own rank — proud, heartless people, who know nothing of your worth and goodness; who, hearing of your low birth, would look on you, and on your husband too, my child, with contempt. He has not your patience and fortitude. Think how bitter it would be for him to bear that contempt — to see you shunned by proud women, and carelessly pitied or patronized by insolent men. Yet all this, and more, he would have to endure, or else to quit the world he has lived in from his boyhood — the world he was born to live in. You love him, I know — ”
Nanina’s tears burst out afresh. “Oh, how dearly — how dearly!” she murmured.
“Yes, you love him dearly,” continued the priest; “but would all your love compensate him for everything else that he must lose? It might, at first; but there would come a time when the world would assert its influence over him again; when he would feel a want which you could not supply — a weariness which you could not solace. Think of his life then, and of yours. Think of the first day when the first secret doubt whether he had done rightly in marrying you would steal into his mind. We are not masters of all our impulses. The lightest spirits have their moments of irresistible depression; the bravest hearts are not always superior to doubt. My child, my child, the world is strong, the pride of rank is rooted deep, and the human will is frail at best! Be warned! For your own sake and for Fabio’s, be warned in time.”
Nanina stretched out her hands toward the priest in despair.
“Oh, Father Rocco! Father Rocco!” she cried, “why did you not tell me this before?”
“Because, my child, I only knew of the necessity for telling you to-day. But it is not too late; it is never too late to do a good action. You love Fabio, Nanina? Will you prove that love by making a great sacrifice for his good?”
“I would die for his good!”
“Will you nobly cure him of a passion which will be his ruin, if not yours, by leaving Pisa tomorrow?”
“Leave Pisa!” exclaimed Nanina. Her face grew deadly pale; she rose and moved back a step or two from the priest.
“Listen to me,” pursued Father Rocco; “I have heard you complain that you could not get regular employment at needlework. You shall have that employment, if you will go with me — you and your little sister too, of course — to Florence tomorrow.”
“I promised Fabio to go to the studio,” began Nanina, affrightedly. “I promised to go at ten o’clock. How can I — ”
She stopped suddenly, as if her breath were failing her.
“I myself will take you and your sister to Florence,” said Father Rocco, without noticing the interruption. “I will place you under the care of a lady who will be as kind as a mother to you both. I will answer for your getting such work to do as will enable you to keep yourself honestly and independently; and I will undertake, if you do not like your life at Florence, to bring you back to Pisa after a lapse of three months only. Three months, Nanina. It is not a long exile.”
“Fabio! Fabio!” cried the girl, sinking again on the seat, and hiding her face.
“It is for his good,” said Father Rocco, calmly: “for Fabio’s good, remember.”
“What would he think of me if I went away? Oh, if I had but learned to write! If I could only write Fabio a letter!”
“Am I not to be depended on to explain to him all that he ought to know?”
“How can I go away from him! Oh! Father Rocco, how can you ask me to go away from him?”
“I will ask you to do nothing hastily. I will leave you till tomorrow morning to decide. At nine o’clock I shall be in the street; and I will not even so much as enter this house, unless I know beforehand that you have resolved to follow my advice. Give me a sign from your window. If I see you wave your white mantilla out