How could she believe those
terrible things he had seen in her eyes--those terrible, terrible
things!
Nay, how should she not believe them? And how implicitly she must have
believed them to have endured so much in hope of averting this doom!
"Marina! Carina!" his heart went out to her in a great wail of pity; a
woman--so tender, so young--kneeling at night in her chapel, alone with
the vision of the horror she was praying to avert; bearing the fasting
and the penance and the weakness, all alone, in the hope that God would
be merciful; gathering up her failing strength so bravely for that
thankless scene in the Senate. And he, her husband, who had never meant
that his love should fail her, could have spared her all this pain by a
little comprehension! Could she ever forgive him? And would she
understand some day? Might he reason it all out lovingly with her when
her strength came back to her--"For baby's sake!" that sweet, womanly,
natural plea which he had disregarded?
"Signor Santorio," he moaned, "if I might but reason with her, I might
cure her!"
"Nay," said Santorio, "not yet; the shadow hath not left her eyes.
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