"Then the law can be just, if it does not require any paper. After
all, I am her sister."
"It's very difficult to believe that--at sight," I said roughly.
"Ah, but that I could prove. There are papers for that."
After this declaration she began to clear the table, preserving a
thoughtful silence.
I was not very surprised at the news of Dona Rita's departure for
Paris. It was not necessary to ask myself why she had gone. I
didn't even ask myself whether she had left the leased Villa on the
Prado for ever. Later talking again with Therese, I learned that
her sister had given it up for the use of the Carlist cause and
that some sort of unofficial Consul, a Carlist agent of some sort,
either was going to live there or had already taken possession.
This, Rita herself had told her before her departure on that
agitated morning spent in the house--in my rooms. A close
investigation demonstrated to me that there was nothing missing
from them. Even the wretched match-box which I really hoped was
gone turned up in a drawer after I had, delightedly, given it up.
It was a great blow. She might have taken that at least! She knew
I used to carry it about with me constantly while ashore. She
might have taken it! Apparently she meant that there should be no
bond left even of that kind; and yet it was a long time before I
gave up visiting and revisiting all the corners of all possible
receptacles for something that she might have left behind on
purpose. It was like the mania of those disordered minds who spend
their days hunting for a treasure. I hoped for a forgotten
hairpin, for some tiny piece of ribbon. Sometimes at night I
reflected that such hopes were altogether insensate; but I remember
once getting up at two in the morning to search for a little
cardboard box in the bathroom, into which, I remembered, I had not
looked before. Of course it was empty; and, anyway, Rita could not
possibly have known of its existence. I got back to bed shivering
violently, though the night was warm, and with a distinct
impression that this thing would end by making me mad. It was no
longer a question of "this sort of thing" killing me. The moral
atmosphere of this torture was different. It would make me mad.
And at that thought great shudders ran down my prone body, because,
once, I had visited a famous lunatic asylum where they had shown me
a poor wretch who was mad, apparently, because he thought he had
been abominably fooled by a woman. They told me that his grievance
was quite imaginary. He was a young man with a thin fair beard,
huddled up on the edge of his bed, hugging himself forlornly; and
his incessant and lamentable wailing filled the long bare corridor,
striking a chill into one's heart long before one came to the door
of his cell.
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