before you come again to Lago Maggiore?"

"Yes."

"Do not forget us ... entirely."

"No."

"You will not be forgotten...."

There was in his voice such an intensity of pain with difficulty subdued
that the trembling seized her again despite all her will. He continued:

"This is farewell ... is it not?" he said.

She could not control her voice to answer. She moved her head in assent,
her eyes still downcast.

"Then ..." said Amaldi, "will you not look at me--to say farewell?"

She lifted her eyes to his--it cost her much to lift them. But she
looked up as he had desired, and it was into his bared soul that she
looked. There was an instant's silence; then he spoke.

"It is my whole life that goes with you," he said.

She stood gazing at him as though spellbound. Then she half-lifted her
hands like a suppliant. She was as white as her gown. But the
flood-gates were open now. Neither of them could stay the flood.

"Yes," he went on, "I love you. I've loved you from the first ... with
all my soul, with all my life.... I love you with my soul.... Do you
understand?... with my soul...."

He took a step towards her. They were both trembling now.

"If you would trust me ... if you would let me shield you ... with my
whole life ... with my love ... with love that is worship ...
worship...."

She found her voice at last, and cried out to him as if for mercy:

"No, Amaldi; no! Oh, I implore you!... Stop! It can't be ... it can't
be!"

He wheeled where he stood so that his face was hidden from her. It was
the instinctive movement of the body that seeks to hide the bared soul.
A moment passed. Then she said brokenly:

"I must go now.... I must go back...."

Now he turned to her again. His face was livid. His lips drew when he
spoke.

"You will _go back_...?" he stammered. "You will go back to that ...
that _Minotaur_?" His teeth ground on the word. It was terrible to see
the man, usually so still, so self-controlled, stripped of all reserve.

"I must.... I must ... for my boy's sake. Ah, don't look at me with such
eyes!... I can't bear your face ... so different!"

She trembled still more violently, put up her hand to shut out the
ghastly, devastated look of his face.

"You go back? You go back to him?" he kept muttering. "_Che orrore_ ...
_che orrore_...." All at once he gripped himself. He said in a strange,
level tone: "There is nothing I can do, then. I would give my life ...
yet there is nothing ..