CHAPTER XXVI.
Only three years have passed since that night when Fulvia made confession to her father of what had happened. They pursued their journey South on the following day, and presently arrived at what was to be their home.
There, in profoundest quiet, they live, returning more and more to the customs and the habits of their own land, throwing off more and more the stamp of foreign life and an existence amongst aliens. They are not without their joys, and they have at least rest for their souls.
Marchmont still lives; still hangs on to his fretful, joyless existence. No word has ever passed between him and his wife. She has not asked for a separation; he has not dared to suggest her to return to him. Neither money nor written words have ever passed between them. He has had himself conveyed to London; and his house is presided over by a widowed sister, from Australia.
Letters pass between the Sicilian castello and the old English country house, and Minna thinks, from the tone of them, that perhaps after a little time she may broach the project which is at present the desire of her heart—a journey to Catania, and beyond, to see those two who hold in her heart the same places as her brother Richard, and her niece Rhoda, to whom she has to be mother. Up to now she has not dared to hint at it, so intensely strong was the desire for solitude and rest breathed through every one of Fulvia’s infrequent letters, and echoed by those of her father. But Minna waits, and says, ‘The day will come.’
Hans Riemann started off rather abruptly on his tour to the Caucasus, with the firm intention of remaining away for a long time.
Signora Dietrich is noted for her works of charity, and for her rigid, unbending adherence to the most strictly religious life which can be led by one who is not actually in a cloister. Her house is a resort of some of the most accomplished of the Roman clergy, and it is known that, in a quiet way, she does an immense amount of work for the Church. She is a clever woman, and her life at present is a highly successful one. Intrigue, and the management of other people’s affairs, and interference with them, are dependent on their subjects’ characters; undirected, they are apt to get into narrow grooves, and the result of their labours is not, in that case, productive of unmixed good—at least, to the mind of the vulgar—but manipulated by the hands of authority, by such a Church as that of Rome, with proper consideration and proper discipline, there is no knowledge of what value they may become to their superiors, nor what satisfaction and content they may secure for themselves.
For such a road in life Signora Dietrich was born; if she entered the right path somewhat late, she at least strives to make up in zeal and mature intelligence the wasted years which slipped by before she had found her vocation.
THE END.
BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
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