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Updated: June 9, 2025


The thought of Giannone's fate was like a cold clutch at his heart; nor was there any balm in knowing that it was at Fulvia's request he had been so freely welcomed; for he was persuaded that, whatever her previous feeling might have been, the scene just enacted must render him forever odious to her.

Antony and Cleopatra were not separated night or day. Suddenly news of serious import came: Fulvia, and Lucius, the brother of Antony, had rebelled against Cæsar and had gathered an army to fight him. Antony was sore distressed, and started at once to the scene of the difficulty. Fulvia's side of the story was never told, for before Antony arrived in Italy she was dead.

Profounder meaning and more subtle music he had found in the great poets of the past; but here was an appeal to the immediate needs of the hour, uttered in notes as thrilling as a trumpet-call, and brought home to every sense by the vivid imagery of the stage. Once more he felt the old ardour of belief that Fulvia's nearness had fanned in him.

Three years had passed since Fulvia's flight to Pianura. From the moment when she and Odo had stood face to face again, it had been clear to him that he could never give her up, to her that she could never leave him. Fate seemed to have thrown them together in derision of their long struggle, and both felt that lassitude of the will which is the reaction from vain endeavour.

There was a melancholy majesty in the ceremony. The clanging bell had stopped. Captain Ascott was in his place at the head of the rude draped bier. In the silence one only heard the swish of water against the 'Fulvia's' side, as we sped on towards Aden. To hear it read by a hardy man, whose life is among stern duties, is to receive a new impression.

Since his departure from Naples there had been nothing to remind him of that vast noiseless labour of the spirit going on everywhere beneath the social surface: that baffled but undiscouraged endeavour in which he had once so impatiently claimed his share. Now every word of Fulvia's smote the bones of some dead purpose, till his bosom seemed a very valley of Ezekiel.

The new Papal Nuncio, who was lately arrived in Venice, had promised to be present; and as he was known to be a man of pleasure there was scarce a sister in the convent but had an eye to his conquest. These circumstances gave to Fulvia's plans the shelter of indifference; for in the delightful effort of surpassing the other nuns even Mary of the Crucifix lost interest in her friend's affairs.

For a moment she hung back, staggering under a white fury of blows; then the gale seemed to lift and swing her about and she shot forward through a long tunnel of glistening blackness, bows on for Peschiera. "The enemy's roof!" thought Odo. He reached for Fulvia's hand and found it in the darkness. The rain was driving against them now and he drew her close and wrapped his cloak about her.

He could not but acknowledge that such a life was better suited to one of Fulvia's gifts and ambitions than the humdrum existence of a Swiss town; yet his first sensation was one of obscure jealousy, of reluctance to think of her as having definitely broken with the past.

There was a melancholy majesty in the ceremony. The clanging bell had stopped. Captain Ascott was in his place at the head of the rude draped bier. In the silence one only heard the swish of water against the 'Fulvia's' side, as we sped on towards Aden. To hear it read by a hardy man, whose life is among stern duties, is to receive a new impression.

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