Part 24 (1/2)

It was a challenge if it was not a threat, and Sister Giovanna defended herself as she could. But she was painfully conscious that something in her responded with a thrill to the cry of the pursuer.

Nevertheless, she answered with a firm refusal.

'You cannot make me do what I will not,' she said.

'I can and I will!' he retorted vehemently. 'It is monstrous that you should be bound by a promise made in ignorance, under a wretched mistake, on a false report that I was dead!'

'We were not even formally betrothed----'

'We loved each other,' interrupted Giovanni, 'and we had told each other so. That is enough. We belong to each other just as truly as if we were man and wife----'

'Even if we were,' said the nun, interrupting him in her turn, 'if I had taken my vows in the belief that my husband had been dead for years, I would not ask to be released!'

He stared at her, his temper suddenly chilled in amazement.

'But if it were a mistake,' he objected, 'if the Pope offered you a dispensation, would you refuse it?'

Sister Giovanna was prepared, for she had thought of that.

'If you had given a man your word of honour to pay a debt you owed him, would you break your promise if you suddenly found that you could use the money in another way, which would give you the keenest pleasure?'

'That is quite different! How can you ask such an absurd question?'

'It is not absurd, and the case is not so different as you think. I have given my word to G.o.d in heaven, and I must pay my debt.'

Giovanni was indignant again, and rebelled.

'You used to tell me that your G.o.d was just!'

'And I have heard you say that your only G.o.d was honour!' retorted the nun.

'Yes!' he answered hotly. 'It is! Honour teaches that the first promise given must be fulfilled before all others!'

'I have been taught that vows made to G.o.d must not be broken.'

She rose, as if the speech were final. Though they had been talking only a few minutes, she already felt that she could not bear much more.

'Surely you are not going already!' he cried, starting to his feet.

Sister Giovanna turned so that she was face to face with him.

'What is there left to say?' she asked, with a great effort.

'Everything! I told you that I would answer when you had finished, and now that you have nothing left to say, you must hear me! You said you would----'

'I said that there could be no answer.' Nevertheless she waited, motionless.

'But there is! The answer is that I will free you from the slavery to which you have sold your soul! The answer is, I love you, and it is yourself I love, the woman you are now, not the memory of your shadow from long ago, but you, you, your very self!'

Half out of his mind, he tried to seize her by the arm, to draw her to him; but he only caught her sleeve, and dropped it as she sprang back with a lightness and maiden grace that almost drove him mad. She drew herself up, offended and hurt.