mpossible!

Leonora smiled sadly. She had expected him to talk that way. She, too,
had suffered much, ever so much, before deciding to do it! It made her
shudder to think that within two days she would be off again, alone,
wandering through Europe, caught up again in that wild, tumultuous life
of art and love, after tasting the full sweetness of the most powerful
passion she had ever known--of what she believed was her "first love."
It was like putting to sea in a tempest with destination unknown. She
loved him, adored him, worshipped him, more than ever now that she was
about to lose him.

"Well, why are you going?" the young man asked. "If you love me, why are
you forsaking me?"

"Just because I love you, Rafael.... Because I want you to be happy."

For her to remain would mean ruin for him: a long battle with his
mother, who was an implacable, a merciless foe. Dona Bernarda might be
killed, but never conquered! Oh, no! How horrible! Leonora knew what
filial cruelty was! How had she treated her father? She must not now
come between a son and a mother! Was she, perhaps, a creature accursed,
born forever to corrupt with her very name the sacredest, purest
relations on earth?

"No, you must be good, my heart. I must go away. We can't go on loving
each other here. I'll write to you, I'll let you know all I'm doing....
You'll hear from me every day, if I have to write from the North Pole!
But you must stay! Don't drive your mother to despair! Shut your eyes to
the poor woman's injustice! For after all, she is doing it all out of
her immense love for you.... Do you imagine I am glad to be leaving
you--the greatest happiness I have ever known?"

And she threw her arms about Rafael, kissing him over and over again,
caressing his bowed, pensive head, within which a tempest of conflicting
ideas and resolutions was boiling.

So those bonds which he had come to believe eternal were to be broken?
So he was to lose so easily that beauty which the world had admired, the
possession of which had made him feel himself the first among men? She
talked of a love from a distance, of a love persisting through years of
separation, travel, all the hazards of a wandering life; she promised to
write to him every day!... Write to him ... from the arms of another
man, perhaps! No! He would never give up such a treasure; never!

"You shall not go," he answered at last decisively. "A love like ours is
not ended so easily. Your flight would