as she remarked, "We can divide the money."

"No, no, it shall be all yours." Then I went on, "I think I know
what your poor aunt wanted to say. She wanted to give directions

that her papers should be buried with her."
Miss Tita appeared to consider this suggestion for a moment;

after which she declared, with striking decision, "Oh no,
she wouldn't have thought that safe!"

"It seems to me nothing could be safer."
"She had an idea that when people want to publish they are capable--"

And she paused, blushing.
"Of violating a tomb? Mercy on us, what must she have thought of me!"

"She was not just, she was not generous!" Miss Tita cried
with sudden passion.

The light that had come into my mind a moment before increased.
"Ah, don't say that, for we ARE a dreadful race."

Then I pursued, "If she left a will, that may give you some idea."
"I have found nothing of the sort--she destroyed it.

She was very fond of me," Miss Tita added incongruously.
"She wanted me to be happy. And if any person should be kind to me--

she wanted to speak of that."
I was almost awestricken at the astuteness with which

the good lady found herself inspired, transparent astuteness
as it was and sewn, as the phrase is, with white thread.

"Depend upon it she didn't want to make any provision that would
be agreeable to me."

"No, not to you but to me. She knew I should like it if you could
carry out your idea. Not because she cared for you but because

she did think of me," Miss Tita went on with her unexpected,
persuasive volubility. "You could see them--you could use them."

She stopped, seeing that I perceived the sense of that conditional--
stopped long enough for me to give some sign which I did not give.

She must have been conscious, however, that though my face showed
the greatest embarrassment that was ever painted on a human countenance

it was not set as a stone, it was also full of compassion.
It was a comfort to me a long time afterward to consider that she

could not have seen in me the smallest symptom of disrespect.
"I don't know what to do; I'm too tormented, I'm too ashamed!"

she continued with vehemence. Then turning away from me and burying
her face in her hands she burst into a flood of tears. If she did

not know what to do it may be imagined whether I did any better.
I stood there dumb, watching her while her sobs resounded in the great

empty hall. In a moment she was facing me again, with her streaming eyes.
"I would give you everything--and she would understand, where she is--

she would forgive me!"
"Ah, Miss Tita--ah, Miss Tita," I stammered, for all reply.

I did not know what to do, as I say, but at a venture I made a wild,
vague movement in consequence of which I found myself at the door.

I remember standing there and saying, "It wouldn't do--it wouldn't do!"
pensively, awkwardly, grotesquely, while I looked away to the opposite

end of the sala as if there were a beautiful view there.
The next thing I remember is that I was downstairs and out of the house.

My gondola was there and my gondolier, reclining on the cushions,
sprang up as soon as he saw me. I jumped in and to his usual

"Dove commanda?" I replied, in a tone that made him stare,
"Anywhere, anywhere; out into the lagoon!"

He rowed me away and I sat there prostrate, groaning softly
to myself, with my hat pulled over my face. What in the name

of the preposterous did she mean if she did not mean to offer me
her hand? That was the price--that was the price! And did she

think I wanted it, poor deluded, infatuated, extravagant lady?
My gondolier, behind me, must have seen my ears red as I wondered,

sitting there under the fluttering tenda, with my
hidden face, noticing nothing as we passed--wondered whether

her delusion, her infatuation had been my own reckless work.
Did she think I had made love to her, even to get the papers?

I had not, I had not; I repeated that over to myself for an hour,
for two hours, till I was wearied if not convinced.

I don't know where my gondolier took me; we floated aimlessly
about in the lagoon, with slow, rare strokes. At last I became

conscious that we were near the Lido, far up, on the right hand,
as you turn your back to Venice, and I made him put me ashore.

I wanted to walk, to move, to shed some of my bewilderment.
I crossed the narrow strip and got to the sea beach--I took my

way toward Malamocco. But presently I flung myself down again
on the warm sand, in the breeze, on the coarse dry grass.

It took it out of me to think I had been so much at fault,
that I had unwittingly but nonetheless deplorably trifled.

But I had not given her cause--distinctly I had not.
I had said to Mrs. Prest that I would make love to her;

but it had been a joke without consequences and I had never
said it to Tita Bordereau. I had been as kind as possible,

because I really liked her; but since when had that become a crime
where a woman of such an age and such an appearance was concerned?

I am far from remembering clearly the succession of events and
feelings during this long day of confusion, which I spent entirely

in wandering about, without going home, until late at night;
it only comes back to me that there were moments when I

pacified my conscience and others when I lashed it into pain.
I did not laugh all day--that I do recollect; the case, however it

might have struck others, seemed to me so little amusing.
It would have been better perhaps for me to feel the comic

side of it. At any rate, whether I had given cause or not
it went without saying that I could not pay the price.

I could not accept. I could not, for a bundle of tattered papers,
marry a ridiculous, pathetic, provincial old woman.

it was a proof that she did not think the idea would come to me,
her having determined to suggest it herself in that practical,

argumentative, heroic way, in which the timidity however had
been so much more striking than the boldness that her reasons

appeared to come first and her feelings afterward.
As the day went on I grew to wish that I had never

heard of Aspern's relics, and I cursed the extravagant
curiosity that had put John Cumnor on the scent of them.

We had more than enough material without them, and my
predicament was the just punishment of that most fatal

of human follies, our not having known when to stop.
It was very well to say it was no predicament, that the way

out was simple, that I had only to leave Venice by the first
train in the morning, after writing a note to Miss Tita,

to be placed in her hand as soon as I got clear of the house;
for it was a strong sign that I was embarrassed that when I

tried to make up the note in my mind in advance (I would put it
on paper as soon as I got home, before going to bed), I could

not think of anything but "How can I thank you for the rare
confidence you have placed in me?" That would never do;

it sounded exactly as if an acceptance were to follow.
Of course I might go away without writing a word, but that would

be brutal and my idea was still to excludebrutal solutions.
As my confusion cooled I was lost in wonder at the importance I

had attached to Miss Bordereau's crumpled scraps; the thought
of them became odious to me, and I was as vexed with the old

witch for the superstition that had prevented her from destroying
them as I was with myself for having already spent more money

than I could afford in attempting to control their fate.
I forget what I did, where I went after leaving the Lido

and at what hour or with what recovery of composure I made
my way back to my boat. I only know that in the afternoon,

when the air was aglow with the sunset, I was standing
before the church of Saints John and Paul and looking up

at the small square-jawed face of Bartolommeo Colleoni,
the terrible condottiere who sits so sturdily astride

of his huge bronze horse, on the high pedestal on which