"Say it all."
The child did as she bade him. She knew she could not prolong this
interview, and still have strength to carry out her resolution. She
embraced and kissed her child so frantically that he became frightened
and began to cry. Then she soothed him and led him to the chamber door.
She put her hand on the latch. She looked at him, her Nino, her baby.
She tottered as she stood. But the force of character which had given
her strength to fight her way for ten years and across half the world
to seek Nino's father gave her power now. She opened the door and put
the boy out gently. She could not trust herself to kiss him again, or
even again to say good-by.
But when the door was closed, she rolled upon the floor in agony,
stifling her moans lest they should be heard outside, beating her
breast and biting her arms like a mad creature.
When Herman came home to dinner that night his wife was gone, and Nino
gave him her message.
XXXVI
FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER.
Richard II.; ii.--2.
Fenton's reflections as he sat in the train that evening, bound for New
York, were varied rather than pleasing. There are crises in a man's
life when it is perhaps quite as wise that he should not attempt to
reason; he cannot do better than to keep his attention occupied with
indifferent subjects, trusting to that instinct or higher self, or
whatever it may be within us which works independently of our outer
consciousness, to settle all perplexities.
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