She would fall into long silences. She was embarrassed in
speaking to him; and it had often happened lately that talk had
passed between them, which had seemed as if they were speaking at
cross-purposes--as if there were something not understood or
misunderstood between them.
And Ludovico had come to the house in the Strada di Sta. Eufemia
that evening, safely relying on the expectation that the Signora
Orsola would go fast asleep, and determined to bring matters to an
understanding between him and Paolina.
"You can hardly, I think, doubt, Paolina mia, that I love you
dearly, far more dearly than anything else on the face of the earth.
Do you not see and know that all my life is devoted to you? You do
not doubt, darling, do you?" said Ludovico, as he sat holding one of
her hands in his.
She sat silent for awhile, and with her face turned away from him,
though she made no attempt to take her hand from his.
"You do not doubt it, Paolina?" he asked again.
"If I did doubt it,--if I had doubted it, Ludovico, you could not
have taught me the lesson which you have taught me--the lesson which
you well know you have so thoroughly taught me, to love you. We
neither of us doubt of the love of the other. But--."
She still continued to sit with her face averted from him; and,
after another pause, finished her speech only by a little sad shake
of her head.
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