They had been
so cruelly short, those few minutes of perfect happiness between the
long misunderstanding that had kept them apart and the parting again
that was to separate them, perhaps for months. As they looked at each
other, they both grew pale, and in an instant Zorzi's young face looked
haggard and his eyes seemed to grow hollow, while Marietta's filled with
tears.
"Good-bye!" she cried in a broken voice. "God keep you, my dear love!"
Then her face was buried in the hollow of his shoulder and her tears
flowed fast and burning hot.
CHAPTER XVII
It was over at last, and Zorzi stood alone by the table, for Marietta
would not let him go with her to the door. She could not trust herself
before Pasquale, even in the gloom. He stood by the table, leaning on it
heavily with one hand, and trying to realise all that had come into his
lonely life within the half hour, and all that might happen to him
before morning. The glorious and triumphant certainty which first love
brings to every man when it is first returned, still swelled his heart
and filled the air he breathed, so that while breathing deep, he could
not breathe enough. In such a mood all dangers dwindled, all obstacles
sank out of sight as shadows sink at dawn.
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