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Updated: June 22, 2025
As he appeared at the rustic gate in the privet hedge, Herminia looked out, and changed color with pleasure when she saw him push it open. "Isn't this a charming place? Only look at our hollyhocks! Consider what an oasis after six months of London!"
So they sat for some minutes, Herminia with her eyes half-closed, drinking in to the full the delight of first love. She could feel her heart beating. At last Alan interposed, and began to speak to her. The girl drew a long breath; then she sighed for a second, as she opened her eyes again. Every curve of her bosom heaved and swayed mysteriously.
"Oh, yes! this power is great, most great," observed the princess; "and the more formidable because it moves in a mysterious way over minds and consciences." "Aye, Herminia," said the marquis: "I have had under my command a magnificent regiment. Very often have I experienced the energetic and exquisite enjoyment of command! Aye! that was greatness.
Indeed, it adds, to my mind, to the tragedy of Herminia Barton's life that the man for whom she risked and lost everything was never quite worthy of her; and that Herminia to the end not once suspected it. Alan was over thirty, and was still "looking about him." That alone, you will admit, is a sufficiently grave condemnation.
Herminia looked up at him with pleading eyes. Tears just trembled on the edge of those glistening lashes. "It never occurred to me to think," she said gently but bravely, "my life could ever end in anything else but martyrdom. It MUST needs be so with all true lives, and all good ones.
And so it was, Herminia herself was fain to admit, in a pure painter's sense that didn't at all attract her. Lines grouped themselves against the sky in infinite diversity. Whichever way they turned quaint old walls met their eyes, and tumble-down churches, and mouldering towers, and mediaeval palazzi with carved doorways or rich loggias.
He heard that cultivated voice murmuring in the usual inaudible tone of introduction, "Miss Barton, Mr. Alan Merrick." Then he raised his hat. As he did so, he looked down at Herminia Barton's face with a sudden start of surprise. Why, this was a girl of most unusual beauty!
"That's quite true," Alan assented. "And have you ever noticed this curious corollary, that you and I can talk far more sympathetically with an earnest Catholic, for example, or an earnest Evangelical, than we can talk with a mere ordinary worldly person." "Oh dear, yes," Herminia answered with conviction. "Thought will always sympathize with thought.
Mechanically, almost unconsciously, Herminia went on with the needful preparations for Alan's funeral. Her grief was so intense that she bore up as if stunned; she did what was expected of her without thinking or feeling it. Dr. Merrick stopped on at Perugia till his son was buried. He was frigidly polite meanwhile to Herminia.
Then Alan began again and talked all he knew. He urged, he prayed, he bent forward, he spoke soft and low, he played on her tenderest chords as a loving woman. Herminia was moved, for her heart went forth to him, and she knew why he tried so hard to save her from her own higher and truer nature. But she never yielded an inch. She stood firm to her colors.
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