“Now, Tessa, I have very little time. You must not cry. Why did you follow me this morning? You must not do so again.”
“I thought,” said Tessa, speaking in a whisper, and struggling against a sob that would rise immediately at this new voice of Tito’s—“I thought you wouldn’t be so long before you came to take care of me again. And the patrigno beats me, and I can’t bear it any longer. And always when I come for a holiday I walk about to find you, and I can’t. Oh, please don’t send me away from you again! It has been so long, and I cry so now, because you never come to me. I can’t help it, for the days are so long, and I don’t mind about the goats and kids, or anything—and I can’t—”
The sobs came fast now, and the great tears. Tito felt that he could not do otherwise than comfort her. Send her away—yes; that he must do, at once. But it was all the more impossible to tell her anything that would leave her in a state of hopeless grief. He saw new trouble in the background, but the difficulty of the moment was too pressing for him to weigh distant consequences.
“Tessa, my little one,” he said, in his old caressing tones, “you must not cry. Bear with the cross patrigno a little longer. I will come back to you. But I’m going now to Rome—a long, long way off. I shall come back in a few weeks, and then I promise you to come and see you. Promise me to be good and wait for me.”
It was the well-remembered voice again, and the mere sound was half enough to soothe Tessa. She looked up at him with trusting eyes, that still glittered with tears, sobbing all the while, in spite of her utmost efforts to obey him. Again he said, in a gentle voice—
“Promise me, my Tessa.”