Then began the long ascent, the road, as usual, being lined with beggars who importunately followed the carriage; while, no sooner had they reached the village itself than they were besieged by at least a dozen women selling the straw baskets which are the specialty of Fiesole.
"Ecco, signor! Ecco signorina! Vary sheep! Vary sheep!" resounded on all sides, each vendor thrusting her wares forward so that progress was impossible.
"What a plague this is!" said Raeburn."They'll never leave you in peace, Erica; they are too well used to the soft hearted signorina Inglese.""Well, then, I shall leave you to settle them," said Erica, laughing, "and see if I can't sketch a little in the amphitheatre.
They can't torment us there because there is an entrance fee.""All right, and I will try this bird's eye view of Florence," said Raeburn, establishing himself upon the seat which stands on the verge of the hill looking southward.He was very fond of making pen-and-ink sketches, and by his determined, though perfectly courteous manner, he at last succeeded in dismissing the basket women.
Erica and Brian, in the meantime, walked down the steep little path which leads back to the village, on their way encountering a second procession of Brothers bearing a coffin.In a few minutes they had found their way to a quiet garden at the remote end of which, far from the houses of Fiesole and sheltered on all sides by the green Apennines, was an old Roman amphitheatre.Grass and flowers had sprung up now on the arena where in olden times had been fearful struggles between men and beasts.Wild roses and honeysuckle drooped over the gray old building, and in between the great blocks of stone which formed the tiers of seats for the spectators sprung the yellow celandine and the white star of Bethlehem.
Erica sat down upon one of the stony seats and began to sketch the outline of the hills and roughly to draw in the foreground the further side of the amphitheatre and broken column which lay in the middle.
"Would you mind fetching me some water?" she said to Brian.
There was a little trickling stream close by, half hidden by bramble bushes.Brian filled her glass and watched her brush as she washed in the sky.
"Is that too blue, do you think?" she asked, glancing up at him with one of her bright looks.
"Nothing could be too deep for such a sky as this," he replied, half absently.Then, with a sudden change of tone, "Erica, do you remember the first day you spoke to me?""Under murky London skies very unlike these," she said, laughing a little, but nervously."You mean the day when our umbrellas collided!""You mustn't abuse the murky skies," said Brian, smiling."If the sun had been shining, the collision would never have occurred.Oh, Erica! What a life time it seems since that day in Gower Street!
I little thought then that I should have to wait more than seven years to tell you of my love, or that at last I should tell you in a Roman amphitheatre under these blue skies.Erica, I think you have known it of late.Have you, my darling? Have you known how I loved you?""Yes," she said, looking down at her sketch book with glowing cheeks.
"Oh! If you knew what a paradise of hope you opened to me that day last December and how different life has been ever since! Those were gray years, Erica, when I dared not even hope to gain your love.But lately, darling, I have hoped.Was I wrong?""No," she said with a little quiver in her voice.
"You will love me?"
She looked up at him for a moment in silence, a glorious light in her eyes, her whole face radiant with joy.
"I do love you," she said softly.
He drew nearer to her, held both her hands in his, waiting only for the promise which would make her indeed his own.
"Will you be my wife, darling?"
But the words had scarcely passed his lips when a look of anguish swept over Erica's face; she snatched away her hands.
"Oh! God help me!" she cried."What have I done? I've been living in a dream! It's impossible, Brian! Impossible!"A gray look came over Brian's face.
"How impossible?" he asked in a choked voice.
"I can't leave home," she said, clasping her hands tightly together."I never can leave my father.""I will wait," said Brian, recovering his voice."I will wait any time for you only give me hope.""I can't," she sobbed."I daren't!"
"But you have given it me!" he exclaimed."You have said you loved me!""I do! I do!" she cried passionately."But, oh, Brian! Have pity on me don't make me say it again I must not think of it I can never be your wife."Her words were broken with sobs which she could not restrain.
"My darling," he said growing calm and strong again at the sight of her agitation, and once more possessing himself of her hand, "you have had a great many troubles lately, and I can quite understand that just now you could not leave your father.But Iwill wait till less troubled times; then surely you will come to me?""No," she said quickly as if not daring to pause, "It will always be the same; there never will be quiet times for us.I can't leave my father.It isn't as if he had other children I am the only one, and must stay.""Is this then to be the end of it all?" cried Brian."My darling, you can not be so cruel to me.It can not be the end there is no end to love and we know that we love each other.Erica, give me some future to look to some hope."The terrible pain expressed in every line of his face wrung her heart.
"Oh, wait," she exclaimed."Give me one moment to think."She buried her face in her hands, shutting out the sunny Italian landscape, the very beauty of which seemed to weaken her powers of endurance.Truly she had been living lately in a golden dream, and the waking was anguish.Oh, if she had but realized before the meaning of it all, then she would have hidden her love so that he never would have guessed it.She would have been to him the Erica of a year ago, just a friend and nothing more.But now she must give him the worst of pain, perhaps ruin his whole life.If she might but give him some promise.What was the right? How were love and duty to be reconciled?
